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OH, HOW THEY DID ENJOY IT KLL\ —Page 153 








ANN'S R«tMILY 


BY 

JANET FIELD HEAT+t 

1) 


iLlllWEDBv 

LJBRIDGNAN 



) > 

> ) i 

BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE SHEPARD CO. 



















Copyriglit, 1925, 

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 
All Rights Reserved 
Ann’s Family 


PRINTED IN TJ. S. A. 


-^ 

* ♦ *- 

NORWOdJJ.'PRESS 

BERWICKSMITH CO. 

NORWOOD, MASS. 


SEP 14 1925 

©C1/\8C1788 


>1 


I 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

To THE Farm . 


II 

A Busy Day . 


III 

“William” 


IV 

The New Game . 


V 

A Farewell Party 


VI 

Good-by, Ann 


VII 

At Aunt Margaret’s 


VIII 

A Plain Day i. 


IX 

An Invitation 


X 

The Party 


XI 

Springtime and Ann . 


XII 

A Surprise 


XIII 

A Ship with Silver Wings 

XIV 

What They All Said 


XV 

Circus Days . 


XVI 

A Visit to Janey . 

• 

XVII 

House-Hunting . . 

• 


PAGE 

9 

. i8 

• 30 

• 42 

• 52 

. 65 

• 75 
. 82 

• 90 

• 99 

. Ill 

. 119 
. 129 
. 142 
. 146 

• 159 

• 175 


5 









ILLUSTRATIONS 

Oh, how they did enjoy it all! (Page 153) 

Frontispiece 

. PAGE 

Right into the face of a little boy . . .12 

Ann loved the funny pigs.22 

“Ouch!” he said again.37 

A stick for a sword.49 

“Aren’t they pretty I”.58 

Mother Goose children.69 

Sailing gayly in the bath-tub .... 79 

Across a golden bridge.85 

“Couldn’t you take it?”.96 

“It’s a knightP^ .105 

Her arms full.115 

“It’s a five-dollar gold-piece 1 ” . . . .123 

“You’re a sweet little thing, Nancy” . .140 

“The idea I”.143 

A prancing clown.157 

“Can’t you walk?”.166 

“Oh, what a cunning little house!” . . . i8i 


7 









ANN’S FAMILY 


I 

TO THE FARM 

‘*'W"^TELL, here I am, starting 
%/^y around again,” said Ann. 

* * As the train pulled out 
of the station the little girl took off her 
hat and settled herself as comfortably as 
she could for her long ride out into the 
country. She felt a little lonely as she 
folded her hands and looked out of the 
window. 

“It seems to me I’m handed around a 
lot—almost like Aunt Margaret’s recipe 
for sponge cake,” sighed Ann. “I do 

9 


10 


ANN'S FAMILY 


wish I had a steady, stay-all-the-time 
family like other children.” 

Now, to look at Ann you would think 
she was just the kind of a little girl to 
belong to somebody. She had shining 
blue eyes and soft brown hair that waved 
about her face and nestled in soft little 
curls at the back of her neck; she was 
really a dear, pretty little girl. If she 
had had a father and a mother, they 
would no doubt have been very proud of 
her, but both parents had died before 
Ann was five years old, and her aunts 
and uncles took turns caring for her. 

“Such a fortunate little girl to have 
such good relatives,” every one said, and 
Ann knew that they spoke the truth. 
She wouldn’t have liked it at all to have 
had to go to the big Children’s Home 
that they passed on the way to church. 


TO THE FARM 


II 


But it had seemed of late as though a 
great deal of work was mixed in with be¬ 
ing taken care of. Perhaps the aunts 
and uncles did not mean to, perhaps they 
did not think of it at all, but each one 
seemed to ask Ann to visit at the time 
when she could help the most. 

During the winter months she stayed 
with Aunt Margaret. There were al¬ 
ways errands to be run at Aunt Mar¬ 
garet’s, and there were little Tom and 
Peggy to be entertained and watched. 

In the spring the little girl was sent to 
Aunt Rachel, who lived in the old 
home on Madison Avenue, where Ann’s 
mother had lived when she was a little 
girl. “Aunt Rachel’s” meant house¬ 
cleaning and learning all the many 
things that Aunt Rachel thought every 
child should know. Ann was always 


12 


ANN’S FAMILY 


glad when, as a last duty, Aunt Rachel 
taught her to pack her trunk neatly and 
sent her to Uncle John’s farm, where 
she usually spent the summer. She was 
on her way to the country this very 
morning—starting around again, as she 
said. 

“I hope they’ll be glad to see me,” 
thought the little girl, looking out of the 
car-window at the scenery she now knew 
so well. “And I do hope they’ll have a 
new baby calf! Oh, and some darling 
baby pigs!” 

Ann began to smile as she thought of 


RIGHT INTO 
THE FACE OF 
A LITTLE BOY 













TO THE FARM 


13 


the little pigs that were always so funny, 
and as she smiled she looked right into 
the face of a little boy who sat opposite 
her. He was sitting up very straight, 
and looked rather uncomfortable in his 
stiff collar and new shoes. He thought 
Ann was smiling at him, and he smiled 
back, but Ann felt that his smile was ah 
most as stiff as his collar. 

“I wasn’t smiling at you, anyway,” she 

said to herself. “Your clothes look 

pretty rich, but you don’t look a bit 
cozy.” 

“Why don’t you read your book, Wil¬ 
liam?” she heard the lady beside the boy 
say to him. 

“His name’s William,” thought Ann. 
“And I guess that’s his mother.” 

She glanced shyly across at the lady 
who had spoken. Ann always liked to 


14 ANN'S FAMILY 

look at mothers, especially as she hadn’t 
one of her own. She noticed the fine 
silk travelling-suit that the lady wore, 
and her handsome umbrella and hand¬ 
bag. 

“Yes, I guess they’re rich, all right,” 
Ann sighed. “I wonder where they are 
going, and if they have any more 
family.” 

She knew it was not polite to stare at 
people, but out of the corner of her eye 
she watched her fellow-travellers, won¬ 
dering what book it was that the boy was 
now reading so attentively. She was sur¬ 
prised, when they reached Fenly station, 
to see them gather up their things and 
prepare to follow her from the train. 

“Why, I believe they are going to 
visit here, too,” thought Ann as she her- 


TO THE FARM 


15 

self jumped lighdy to the platform and 
looked about for some one from her 
uncle’s farm. 

“Oh, Pete, hello!” she exclaimed, spy¬ 
ing at last the young fellow who had 
been for several years her Uncle John’s 
helper. 

“Well, here you be, Ann,” said the 
big, good-natured man, lifting her into 
the old buckboard. “Growed some, 
hain’t you?” 

“Oh, yes, indeed,” answered the little 
girl. “I’ve grown a whole inch and a 
half, and I’ve gained four pounds; they 
told us all at school before we came 
away this year.” 

“You don’t say! Be a young lady 
’fore we know it, won’t you now?” 

“My, no, I’m only ten,” Ann told him. 


i6 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“Oh, Pete, you’ve got a new horse to go 
with old Jerry, haven’t you ? Have they 
got anything else new?” 

“Well, jest the usual things,” drawled 
Pete; “pigs and ducks and calves and 
the rest.” 

“Oh, Pete! A new baby calf!” 

“Two of them,” laughed the man; 
“fine, frisky ones.” 

“O-ooh!” squealed Ann, bounding up 
and down on the rickety seat: “I can 
hardly wait to get there. Let me drive, 
Pete; I can make them go.” 

Pete handed over the reins, and go 
they did. It was not long before they 
came in sight of the old farmhouse, and 
Ann’s little cousins came running out to 
meet her—Mary and Jack and Florence. 
Yes, and there was even the baby, tod- 


TO THE FARM 


17 

dling unsteadily to the door. Ann 
caught him up in her arms. 

“Why, Precious, how you’ve grown!” 
she cried. “Kiss Ann, darling.” 

Still holding him, she ran in to greet 
her aunt and uncle, and, as they all gath¬ 
ered about the big dinner-table, Ann 
felt very happy again. 

“After all, it’s very nice I” she thought, 
“even if it isn’t a steady family.” 


II 


A BUSY DAY 

“ A NN, Ann, wake up, it’s six 
/jL o’clock,” cried her cousin 
^ Mary the next morning, 
jumping up from her side of the bed 
which Ann always shared with her. 

Ann sat up blinking and rubbed her 
eyes. “Dear me,” she said; “I couldn’t 
think where I was. It always mixes me 
up dreadfully at first when I change 
families.” 

“Don’t you like it?” asked little Mary 

anxiously. She was two years younger 

than Ann, and very fond of her. “I’d 

just love to be going to different places. 

18 


A BUSY DAY 


19 


I never go anywhere except once in a 
while when Father takes us to town to 
buy new shoes.” 

“Well,” replied Ann, now wide¬ 
awake, “it might be nice if you were go¬ 
ing to new places all the time, like Alice 
in Wonderland, you know, but I keep 
going around in a circle. I don’t be¬ 
lieve, if I live to be a hundred. I’ll ever 
get to more than three places—here, 
and at Aunt Margaret’s and Aunt 
Rachel’s.” 

The mention of the last name made 
Mary think of something. 

“Oh, Ann, Pete brought up your 
trunk. Let’s unpack it. Did Aunt 
Rachel give you anything?” 

“Two aprons,” said Ann, getting 
dressed as fast as she could. “That is. 
Aunt Rachel bought the stuff and I 


20 ANN’S FAMILY 

made the aprons. Wait, I’ll get them 
out.” 

Lifting the lid of the trunk, the little 
girl dove in among her small belong¬ 
ings and brought out two diminutive 
bungalow-aprons. “They’re French- 
seamed—that’s sewed inside and out,” 
she said proudly. 

“Oh, aren’t they nice!” said Mary. 

“Well—they’re aprons,” said Ann 
with a sigh. “Come on, Mary, we’d 
better go down for breakfast. Perhaps 
Aunt Flo will let us come up and un¬ 
pack right afterward.” 

But it was late in the morning before 
Ann had a chance to unpack her little 
trunk, for there were all the breakfast 
dishes to be washed and Baby Donald to 
be taken care of while Aunt Flo did the 
churning. 



A BUSY DAY 


21 


“Let’s take him out to the barnyard,” 
said Ann. “Just think, I haven’t seen 
any of the chickens and things yet.” 

“Come, see the new calves,” shouted 
Jack, rushing on ahead. “I’ll show you 
where they are, Ann!” 

“And the baby duckies!” cried little 
Florence. “I’ll show you them, Ann.” 

“Dear me, so much to see!” laughed 
Ann. “But you’ll have to go more 
slowly. Precious Baby can’t run so 
fast.” 

Around the barn and down into the 
orchard they went. Ann loved the farm 
animals,—the funny pigs that came 
grunting right up to .you, the calves, 
with soft, big eyes, that ran away from 
you. She loved the meadow with the 
little brook, and the orchard with the 
friendly fruit-trees. She was so inter- 



22 


ANN'S FAMILY, 



ANN LOVED THE FUNNY PIGS 



























































A BUSY DAY 


23 

ested in everything that it was nearly two 
hours before the children came back to 
the house, Ann carrying the baby, who 
was nearly asleep. She gave him into 
Aunt Flo’s outstretched arms and ran 
up to her room. 

Taking her things out of the trunk, 
she folded them neatly and put them 
away in the dresser that Mary had emp¬ 
tied for her. Last of all, she took out 
the photographs of her father and 
mother, which she always carried with 
her. The little girl placed them on her 
side of the bureau and gazed at them 
earnestly. She had been only four years 
old when her mother died, but she could 
remember that she was blue-eyed like 
herself, and that her arms were soft and 
tender. And she remembered that after 
her mother died the laughing look had 


ANN’S FAMILY 


24 

gone out of her father’s eyes, and soon 
after he had left her with Aunt Margaret 
and gone away to Camp—to be a real 
soldier in the Great War, they told her. 

He went to France, and they told her 
about that, too, but he never came back; 
only the letter from his lieutenant and 
the report—“Captain Ralph Burdette 
killed in action.” 

Ann gazed proudly at her soldier- 
father’s picture and then back at her 
mother. “You’re my really realest fam¬ 
ily, you know,” she whispered. “And 
I guess you’re somewhere loving me.” 

A tear fell over Ann’s little nose, but 
she brushed it hastily away. 

“I think I’d better make up a little 
verse and sing,” she said. “I’ll make it 
a loving one, like you, Father and 
Mother dear.” 



A BUSY DAY 


25 


The pictured eyes seemed to smile at 
the little girl, who, a moment later, was 
bravely singing: 

“Just loving every one, and loving everything 
Keeps people happy and makes people sing.” 

“Ann, oh, Ann!” cried Mary, running 
up the stairs and into the room. “Fa¬ 
ther says Mrs. Gates wants to know if 
we can come over this afternoon and 
help her pick the peas for market. 
She’s afraid they’ll spoil if she waits for 
J im’s foot to get better, and she’ll give us 
twenty-five cents a basket. Mother says 
we may do it, you and I!” 

“Oh, jolly,” said Ann, hopping up. 
She liked to go to the big truck-farm 
near by, and she liked big, energetic 
Mrs. Gates, who usually had something 
good tucked away in her apron-pockets 


26 


ANN’S FAMILY 


for visiting children. And, besides, 
twenty-five cents a basket! 

“I bet I can pick ten baskets,” she 
declared. “That will be two dollars 
and a half—oh, Mary!” 

“Oh, no, you can’t,” said practical 
little Mary. “They’re great big bas¬ 
kets, Ann. Here, I’ve got two sunbon- 
nets, and Mother says we must wear 
aprons. Will you wear one of your 
new ones, Ann?” 

“Yes, and you’ll wear the other,” 
laughed Ann, bringing them out. 

Aunt Flo laughed at them when she 
saw them all ready before dinner. 

“Are you going to wash the dishes in 
your sunbonnets?” she asked. 

“Oh, bother, I forgot the old dishes,” 
said Mary. 

“Well, you may forget them this 



A BUSY DAY 


27 

time,” said her mother, with a smile. 
“I think Mrs. Gates wants you early.” 

But early as it was when they started, 
it was supper-time before the two little 
girls came back, and pretty tired little 
girls they were, too. The damp curls 
lay in ringlets on Ann’s forehead, and 
her nose was badly sunburned, but in 
her pocket she had, if not two dollars 
and a half, at least half that sum. 

“Rich young ladies, aren’t you?” said 
her Uncle John at the supper-table, 
when Mary, too, produced a whole dol¬ 
lar that she had earned. “Whatever are 
you going to do with so much money?” 

“Save it till I go to town and buy 
candy with it,” said Mary promptly. 

“Some for me! Some for me!” 
screamed Jack and Florence together. 

“Yes, some for everybody,” declared 


28 


ANN’S FAMILY 


the generous Mary. “What are you 
going to get, Ann?” 

“She’d better get a bigger sunbonnet 
to cover her nose,” laughed Aunt Flo. 

“No, get candy, too, Ann,” said Jack 
expectantly. 

Ann hesitated. “How much would 
one of the baby pigs cost. Uncle John?” 
she asked timidly. “I’d love to have the 
little black-and-white one for all my 
own.” 

Uncle John laughed heartily. “Upon 
my word, Ann,” he said, “you’ve got a 
business head on your shoulders. You 
must get it from your Uncle Robert.” 

“It isn’t business,” Ann replied. 
“It’s having something that belongs to 
you.” 

Her uncle smiled at her across the 
table. “I guess you can have your pig, 


A BUSY DAY 


29 


but you’d better keep the money. 
Maybe Aunt Margaret can use it for 
you later on.” 

“Oh, thank you, thank you. Uncle 
John,” cried Ann in a glad voice. Her 
heart seemed swelling with happiness, 
and that evening, when she ran out to 
see her own pig, her very own, her little 
song came trilling back to her; 

“Oh, just loving every one and loving every¬ 
thing 

It does make you happy and it does make you 
sing.” 


Ill 


“william” 

^ O you think it’s going to 
I I rain, Father?” asked Mary 
^ a few days later. “You 
know it’s the Sunday School picnic to¬ 
morrow.” 

The Sunday School picnic! Ann’s 
face brightened. At last year’s picnic 
they had all had such fun. They had 
gone in Mrs. Gates’ big truck wagon, 
and then, when they arrived at their des¬ 
tination, there had been the lake, with 
the little boats and the basket-luncheons, 

■ with ice-cream for a treat for every¬ 
body afterward. 


i. 


30 


“WILLIAM” 31 

“You came just in time, Ann,” Mary 
said happily. 

Aunt Flo looked up. “I thought per¬ 
haps Ann would stay home with Baby 
this year and let me go,” she said. “I 
haven’t been for a long time, and Ann 
doesn’t know the new minister or his 
family.” 

Ann’s heart thumped angrily for a 
moment, and tears of disappointment 
started to her eyes. This was usually 
the way when something very nice was 
in prospect. She had to stay at home 
with the baby when she was at this 
place, or with Tom and Peggy when she 
was at Aunt Margaret’s. 

Aunt Flo saw the tears. 

“Oh, if you feel bad about it, Ann, 
you may go, I suppose,” she said in a 
tired voice. “You don’t go to that Sun- 


ANN’S FAMILY 


32 

day School very often, so I didn’t think 
you’d care.” 

“Couldn’t we take Baby and all go?” 
pleaded Mary. 

“No,” said her mother firmly. “He’d 
get tired, and then nobody could have a 
good time. Besides, some one has to be 
here to give Father and Pete some lunch. 
Ann may go if she wishes.” 

But Ann had been thinking! How 
good Aunt Flo really was to her! And 
she had so little chance to go anywhere 
until she, Ann, came to help. Her face 
changed back to sunshine. 

“Why, of course Fll stay with my 
Precious,” she cried, catching up the 
baby, who was toddling about. “We 
can keep house together beautifully, so 
we can.” 

Aunt Flo’s face brightened. “Fll get 


^WILLIAM” 33 

everything ready before I go. It will 
be a real treat for me.” 

So it was that before eight o’clock the 
next morning Ann saw them all pile into 
the big truck and drive away, a jolly 
crowd, leaving only little Donald and 
herself, and Uncle John, already busy in 
the hayfield. 

Ann felt quite proud to be left in 
charge of everything. She hurried 
about, making the rooms clean and tidy. 
Baby running to and fro after her as she 
worked. About ten o’clock the little 
feet began to drag, and Ann saw that he 
was getting sleepy. She felt indeed like 
a little mother as she picked him up and 
sang a little song while his drowsy head 
rested upon her shoulder. 

“Sweetly sleep, my baby dear, 

I will stay with you quite near; 


34 


ANN'S FAMILY 


While you sleep I’ll work away, 

When you wake, we’ll gayly play.” 

“That’s a nice song,” Ann said as she 
laid the baby carefully down in his crib. 
“I’d better remember it, because when 
I’m grown up I’m going to have a hun¬ 
dred children.” 

When Uncle John came in later she 
had bacon and eggs ready for luncheon. 
She was very happy to think she had not 
burned the bacon and that none of the 
egg-yolks were broken except one, 
which she carefully kept for herself. 

“You’re quite a housekeeper, Ann,” 
said Uncle John, smiling to himself over 
her hot cheeks and tumbled hair; “this 
bacon is very nice.” 

“I’d much rather do this than go to the 
picnic,” said Ann fervently; “much 
rather.” 


“WILLIAM^’ 


35 

“Think what nice bacon your pig will 
make some day,” said her uncle with 

twinkling eyes. 

“I guess not,” answered Ann. “That 
pig’s never going to get killed! He’s 
just going to live on and get fatter and 
happier every year till he just dies 1” 

“Well perhaps he is,” laughed Uncle 
John. “One never knows what’s going 
to happen to him, whether he’s a pig or 
a person.” 

“Be all right till the folks get home?” 
he asked a little later, preparing to go 
back to work. 

“O my, yes,” said the young house¬ 
keeper. 

She flew about again, getting the 
dishes washed, and, when Baby awoke, 
was ready to feed him the rice and milk 
Aunt Flo had left for him. 


36 ANN’S FAMILY 

“I feel as though I’d like a nap now,” 
sighed Ann afterward, leading little 
Donald outside to the hammock under 
the trees. But Master Baby didn’t be¬ 
lieve in naps for other people. He felt 
as frisky as a rabbit after his own long 
rest, and kept his little nurse busy 
watching him. 

“Dear me,” she said at last, “I guess 
I’d better put you in the go-cart and take 
you for a walk. We can go down to 
the back pasture and get some black¬ 
berries for supper.” 

Baby was always happy in his little 
cart. He jangled the tin pail Ann 
brought out all the way to the pasture 
where the blackberries hung thick and 
large upon the bushes. 

Ann had just started to pick them 


“WILLIAM” 37 

when she heard a voice a litde distance 
away; “Ooo—ouch—ooh.” 

Looking up, she saw a little boy pull¬ 
ing away from the sharp blackberry 
thorns. He was sucking his fingers in 
pain, and two sudden tears stood in his 
eyes. 

“Ouch!” he said again. 



“ouch !” HE SAID AGAIN 

Ann ran to him laughing. “It does 
hurt,” she said, “but I can’t help laugh- 




ANN’S FAMILY 


38 

ing; you’re just ‘the man from our 
town.’ Yowknow 

“ ‘He was so wondrous wise 
He jumped into a bramble-bush 
And scratched out both his eyes!’ ” 

“Oh, Mother Goose,’’ said the boy dis¬ 
dainfully, still sucking his fingers. 

“Don’t you like Mother Goose?’’ 
Ann asked politely. 

“No, it’s silly!’’ said the boy. 

“I suppose you think ‘Alice in Won¬ 
derland’ is silly, too,’’ said Ann a little 
crossly. She loved Mother Goose. 

“Yes I do—silliest thing I ever read 
in my life.’’ 

Ann looked at him curiously. 

“Why, you’re William,” she ex¬ 
claimed suddenly. 



“WILLIAM” 39 

“I don’t know you,” said the boy, star¬ 
ing back. 

“No, but I was the little girl that sat 
near you on the train. I remember 
now. You got off when I did. Does 
your grandmother live here or 
something?” 

“No”—the little boy’s tone was more 
friendly—“we board—right in that 
house over there. I got sick, and the 
doctor said I had to come out to the 
country. I don’t like it, either.” 

“Why don’t you?” asked Ann, who 
thought that he didn’t look much more 
comfortable than he had in the train, 
although his stiff collar had disappeared, 
and his new shoes, too. 

“Nothing to do,” said city-bred 
William. 




40 'ANN’S FAMILY 

“O my, yes there is; there’s lots to do 
in the country! You can come over 
and play with my cousins and me,” said 
warm-hearted Ann. 

“I hate a gang of kids,” said William, 
honestly. “I like it better here.” He 
looked at Ann. “You come here, can’t 
you?” 

“Well, I guess I can. I’ll tell you. 
I’ll come to-morrow and maybe we can 
make up some games. I often do. But 
I can’t play now—I have to pick some 
berries. Here, can’t you help me pick? 
And eat some; they’re good.” 

The little boy stuck his hand in very 
carefully. “I thought they were just 
bushes before,” he said. 

The two children picked until the 
pail was full. 

“Now I must run,” said Ann, “but I’ll 


“WILLIAM" 


41 


come to-morrow, William. Get in, Pre¬ 
cious Baby; the folks will beat us home 
if we don’t start now.” 

She felt quite excited as she hurried 
along the road with the baby and the 
blackberries. 

“It’s almost an adventure,” she said to 
herself. “I shall be like Uncle Wiggly 
after a while, finding something strange 
every time I go out. I wonder if he will 
come to-morrow.” 


IV 


THE NEW GAME 

“Y WONDER if he’ll come,” was 

I Ann’s first thought when she 
awoke the next morning. She 
felt quite delighted about finding the 
strange boy in the pasture the day be¬ 
fore. Somehow he seemed to be her 
own special friend, and little Ann had 
few friends of her own age. 

She told them all about William at the 
breakfast-table, and everybody laughed 
about his getting stuck in the black¬ 
berry bushes. 

“They must be staying at the Kim¬ 
balls’,” said Aunt Flo. “They take city 
people to board sometimes.” 

42 



THE NEW GAME 


43 

“I’m going, too, to see him,” declared 
Mary. 

“So’m I—So’s me,” sang out Florence 
and Jack. 

But their mother laughed. “Not this 
afternoon; you are all tired out already 
from that picnic yesterday. A good 
long nap for all of you. Besides, Ann 
was such a fine housekeeper yesterday 
she’s going to have this afternoon all for 
herself.” 

Ann looked up gratefully. 

“I think just at first he’d rather not 
have so many. He seems like such a 
quiet boy, somehow.” 

All the way to the pasture that after¬ 
noon she was wondering what she could 
play with her new friend. “If he 
comes,” she said, looking around the 
blackberry bushes. 


44 ANN’S FAMILY 

He was there before her. Ann saw 
him get up and wave a book at her. She 
started to run. 

“You beat me here, didn’t you?” she 
said in her friendly way. “Have you 
been reading while you waited for me. 
What’s your book?” adding mischiev¬ 
ously, “Mother Goose, I suppose?” 

“I guess not,” said the boy. “I’m not 
a baby!” 

“ ‘King Arthur Stories’,” read Ann. 
“Oh, yes, we had some at school. Do 
you like them?” 

“They’re bully,” said William. “I 
brought it here to read till you came. I 
ran off right after dinner so I wouldn’t 
have to take a nap.” 

“Didn’t you tell your mother where 
you were going?” 

“Nope.” 


THE NEfF GAME 45 

“Well, I haven’t any mother,’’ said 
Ann soberly, “but I think, if I had. I’d 
tell her everything.’’ 

“Mothers are all right,’’ remarked 
William, “but sometimes they’re awful 
fussy-cats, wanting you to take medicine 
or drink milk.” 

“Don’t you like to drink milk?” 

“No, I hate it,” confessed William. 

“I can just guess you like candy, 
though,” said wise little Ann. 

“You can bet I do,” grinned William, 
producing a bag that minute from his 
pocket. He held it out to Ann. She 
took a gumdrop gravely. 

“Maybe that’s why you were sick,” 
she said. “Maybe you don’t eat the 
right things. Don’t you have verses 
and cards at school about it? We 
do.” 


46 ANN’S FAMILY 

“Not at our school! I go to private 
school.” 

“Well, at our school we have a nurse 
that comes. She has cunning dolls and 
they have a play to teach us health les¬ 
sons, and little rhymes like this: 

‘Candy isn’t good for me, 

So I’ll eat it sparingly;’ 

and 

‘Plenty of milk—a quart a day—> 

Will add to your health and what you weigh.’ 

“You’d look better a little fatter, too,” 
Ann added seriously. 

“Oh, all right. I’ll drink milk, maybe,” 
said her companion hastily. “Come on, 
let’s play something. What can we do 
here?” 


THE NEW GAME 


47 


“Hide and seek?” suggested Ann. 

“Not much fun,” said William, who 
was rather lazy. “Let’s get up a real 
game. It would be a fine place for 
Robin Hood, only we’d have to have a 
whole crowd. Let’s think of something 
for just us two.” 

“A secret game!” exclaimed Ann, en¬ 
tering into his spirit. “Oh! and some¬ 
thing magic!” She knitted her brows 
in thought. Ann often made up games 
for herself. Her blue eyes slipped to 
the book on the ground. 

“I tell you, William,” she said sud¬ 
denly, “you can be a knight, and every 
day you can set off on an adventure. 
You can really do things, you know, and 
then the next day you can tell me about 
it, and I’ll be the only one that knows.” 


48 ANN’S FAMILY 

“And what will you be?” asked 
William, sitting up with interest. “The 
king?” 

“No—” Ann shook her curly head. 
“I don’t think I’d want to be the king 
exactly. We can imagine the king. 
Let’s have the castle over there under 
the oak-tree, and you can go to him for 
your orders.” 

“But what will you be? Won’t you 
be in it?” persisted William. 

“O my, yes,” replied Ann, thinking 
busily. “Suppose I be the one that sits 
here in my house and works the magic? 
I read an awfully nice name in a book 
once—‘The Most Wise Counsellor.’ 
That’s what I’ll be. ‘The Most Wise 
Counsellor’—and you must always call 
me that.” 


THE NEW GAME 49 


“All right, and what will my name 


be?” 


“You’ll be Sir William—Sir William 
the Brave.” Ann clapped her hands. 
“Oh, doesn’t that sound fine?” 

“Just like the fellows in that book. 
Shall I go out every day to fight with 
the other knights for practice?” 



“Go on right over 
there now,” said 
Ann, “and don’t for¬ 
get to visit the king 
first. And I’ll stay 
here in my secret 
room.” 


A STICK FOR A 
SWORD 


William pranced 
off on an imaginary 
horse, and Ann saw 
him galloping about. 




ANN'S FAMILY 


50 

using a stick for a sword in mock battle. 

She gazed at him happily. “He’s my 
friend,” she said to herself. 

When William came back his face 
was flushed and he was out of breath. 

“What shall I do for my first ad¬ 
venture?’’ he asked. “The knights say 
there’s a big dragon to be killed.” 

Ann’s eyes began to twinkle. 

“There’s a terrible dragon,” she said, 
“He’s called ‘Too Much Candy.’ You 
must kill him and bring his skin to the 
king.” 

“Oh-h—that’s no fair!” protested 
the new knight. 

“Well, if you’re going to do some¬ 
thing, you might as well do something,” 
said the Most Wise Counsellor. “You 
mustn’t eat any more candy till I see you 
again.” 


THE NEW GAME 


51 

“Just two pieces,” said the knight, 
looking into the bag. 

“Well, just those two and not a bit 
more,” said Ann, taking the last choc¬ 
olate bud to help him along. “And the 
best way for you is not to buy any more.” 

Ann made a profound bow. “Fare¬ 
well, Sir William, be brave and good,” 
she said. 

Sir William made a stiff bow in re¬ 
turn. “Farewell Most—Most Wise 
Counsellor,” he said. 


V 


A FAREWELL PARTY 


T he days that followed were 
happy ones for Ann. Of 
course the mornings on the 
farm were long and busy. There were 
always dishes to be washed and beds to 
be made, chickens to be fed and veg¬ 
etables to be gathered from the garden. 
Baby Donald, tumbling about after her, 
became Ann’s shadow, and sometimes 
a troublesome one, but she dearly loved 
the little fellow and would often pick 
him up when he became restless and 
carry him off to see the fast-growing 
piggies that they both loved to watch. 
Then Ann would point out the black- 

52 


A FAREWELL PARTY 53 

f 

and-white one with pride, “He’s 
mine,” she would tell the baby. “You 
must take care of him for me all winter, 
Precious.” 

But if the mornings were full of work, 
the afternoons brought unusual glad¬ 
ness to Ann, for while her younger 
cousins napped she could run off to the 
pasture to William and the fascinating 
game; for the knight game did not lose 
its charm, and no one knew the happy 
hour each afternoon that the two chil¬ 
dren spent in the shady pasture, half in 
fun, half in earnest, about the wonder¬ 
ful adventures they planned. Mary 
might join them later, Florence and 
Jack might tumble about in the hay with 
them, but this was their own secret en¬ 
chanted land. Sometimes it seemed as 
though they could really see a king’s 


ANN'S FAMILY 


54 

castle standing under the oak-tree. 
Sometimes the people they named and 
described to each other seemed almost 
as real as themselves, and sometimes, it 
seemed to Ann, that William did look al¬ 
most like a knight. 

“He does stand straight,” she said to 
herself one day. “And he’s ever so 
much braver about a lot of things. If 
he’d only drink more milk, I believe he’d 
get fatter, too. I wonder if I could 
make that into an adventure like the 
candy one.” 

“There’s a beautiful princess in 
trouble. Sir Knight,” she said as 
William came prancing up before her a 
few minutes later. “She is kept a pris¬ 
oner by two wicked brown giants over 
there. You must make haste and de¬ 
liver her.” 


A FAREWELL PARTY 55 

“Upon my honor as a knight, I will,” 
declared Sir William. “How can I 
set the princess free. Most Wise 
Counsellor?” 

Ann could not help smiling. “The 
Princess’ name is Milka, and the giants 
are Tea and Coffee. Every time you 
drink a glass of milk, you cut one of the 
cords that tie the princess,” she 
whispered. 

William laughed at that. He had 
learned to take these ideas of Ann’s in 
good spirit, for he had found it rather 
jolly to get some fun out of the things 
you had to do anyhow. He had really 
enjoyed the last one—where he was told 
to rescue Old Lady Vegetable and her 
children from the Tyrant Meat. His 
mother had never seen William eat so 
many carrots as he did that week. She 


ANN’S FAMILY 


56 

did not know that her son, sitting at 
Mrs. Kimball’s humble table, was a fear¬ 
less knight setting free, with every help¬ 
ing of spinach or beans or carrots, one 
of the old woman’s numerous daughters. 

“This country air is certainly doing 
him good,’’ she said to Mrs. Kimball. 
“If you can keep us, I think we will stay 
another week. Who are these children 
he plays with so much of the time? 
That little blue-eyed one seems a sweet 
little thing.” 

“That’s little Ann Burdette, John 
Fairlee’s niece. She’s a nice child and 
steady as daylight.” Busy Mrs. Kim¬ 
ball sat down on a porch chair for a mo¬ 
ment, glad of a chance to rest and talk. 
“Her poor father was killed in the war, 
and she lost her mother before that, when 
she was a mite of a thing. I never did 


A FAREWELL PARTY 57 

see her father, but I remember her 
mother well—a pretty young thing she 
was. It’s a lucky thing for the child 
that she has such kind relations.” 

“Yes, indeed, and this country air is 
good for any child. Here they come 
now,” said Mrs. Hazard, as Ann and 
William came in sight, their hands full 
of wild flowers. 

William’s mother went slowly down 
to the gate to meet them. She noticed 
hoW much sturdier and browner her 
little boy had become, and she suddenly 
felt very kindly toward the motherless 
little girl with whom he played so 
happily. 

The children saw her and came run¬ 
ning to give her the flowers they had 
gathered, pale pink phlox and orange 
lilies. 


58 


'ANN’S FAMILY 



“aren’t they pretty!” 


“Aren’t they pretty! Thank you, 
dear,” said the lady, smiling as Ann 
lifted admiring eyes to her face. 
“William will miss his little playmate 
when he goes home. We must have a 
party before we go. Couldn’t you and 
your cousins come here and spend the 
afternoon with him to-morrow? Per¬ 
haps we could sail boats in the creek.” 





A FAREWELL PARTY 59 

Ann’s face shone with pleasure. 
The only place where the creek was safe 
for children to play was on the Kimball 
farm, but the Kimballs had no children 
of their own, and the little Fair lee chil¬ 
dren were not often invited for wading 
or boat-sailing. 

“All of us?” she asked eagerly. 

“Oh, yes,” said William’s mother. 

“I’ll ask Aunt Flo—I think she’ll let 
us,” said Ann. 

“I’ll come over in the morning and 
see if you can come,” William told her. 

Ann hurried home with the invitation. 

“Me, too? Me, too?” cried Mary 
and J ack and Florence when they heard 
the news. 

“You may all go but Baby. I 
wouldn’t trust him near that creek this 


6 o 


ANN’S FAMILY 


summer,” said Aunt Flo, and the chil¬ 
dren gleefully ran right away to get 
sticks for shipbuilding, and bits of cloth 
for sails. Until bedtime they were 
busy, but when they all started the next 
afternoon each child carried a boat, and 
Ann had one besides for William, that 
she and Mary together had made. 

“We can play they are the king’s fleet 
starting out on a voyage,” she whispered 
to William later when they were all at 
the creek, ready to launch the boats. 

William nodded, and Ann beamed 
with happiness to think that they could 
carry on this secret play while at the 
same time her cousins were sharing her 
pleasure. 

Later in the afternoon they all went 
back to the shady veranda where 
William’s mother brought out glasses of 


A FAREWELL PARTY 6i 

Mrs. Kimball’s home-made root-beer 
and great squares of molasses cake. 

“I’m going to have a real party on my 
birthday,” said William, biting into his 
cake with great gusto. “And I’m go¬ 
ing to invite you.” Then a sudden 
thought struck him. “But I woh’t be 
here on my birthday,” he said regret¬ 
fully; “It’s in the winter.” 

“Where do you live, William?” asked 
Ann. 

“In Memford.” 

“Why, so do 1 !” Ann cried out in de¬ 
lighted surprise. 

“You don’t, either—you live here.” 

“No, I don’t,” laughed Ann. “No, 
I don’t, William; I live here only in 
summer. I live in Memford all winter 
with my Aunt Margaret. I go to school 
there and everything. I didn’t see you 


62 ANN’S FAMILY 

get on the train at Memford that day.” 

“Where do you live, whereabouts in 
Memford?” 

“Sixty-five Stacy Street, with my aunt 
and uncle and Tom and Peggy Strat¬ 
ton,” Ann told him, and the two children 
smiled happily at each other. 

It seemed the crowning touch to their 
happy days together to think that they 
really lived in the same town. Ann’s 
heart swelled with gladness as she and 
Mary walked home together awhile 
later—Jack and Florence skipping 
gayly in front of them. 

“Didn’t we have a good time?” she 
said. “It’s such fun to have a friend. 
I made up a verse about it the other day. 
Listen, Mary; 

“The very best gift the fairies send 

Is to have a friend—to have a friend— 




A FAREWELL PARTY 63 

Almost as nice, it seems to me, 

As ha-aving a family.” 

There, isn’t that a nice one?” 

“Yes,” said Mary. “You do make up 
lovely verses, Ann. But I’m glad he’s 
going, just the same,” she added. 

“Why, Mary!” her cousin cried re¬ 
proachfully. “Don’t you like me to 
have a friend?” 

“No, I don’t,” said honest Mary. 
“When I get up from my nap now, 
you’re alwavs away somewhere with 
him.” 

“Well, you’re my best friend, Mary,” 
said Ann in a comforting manner, 
throwing her arms about the little girl. 
“Anyway, he’s going home on Friday.” 

“And I’m glad of it,” persisted Mary. 

Ann laughed. “We’ll have good 
times, won’t we?” 


64 ANN’S FAMILY 

She felt generous toward the whole 
world. In spite of Mary, her little 
verse held true: 

“The very best gift the fairies send 
Is to have a friend—to have a friend— 
Almost as nice, it seems to me, 

As ha-aving a family.” 


VI 


GOOD-BY, ANN 


W ILLIAM came early Friday 

morning to say good-by. 
He had on his stiff collar 
again, and his new shoes, and reminded 
Ann of the little boy on the train who 
would hardly smile at her. 

“Here’s my mother’s card,’’ said 
William. “I didn’t bring any of my 
own. And it’s got on where I live and 
everything.” 


“MRS. WILLIAM ELLERY HAZARD, 

17 FARGO STREET,” 

read Ann. 

“Wait a minute, William, I’ll get a 
piece of paper and write down mine.” 

65 


66 ANN’S FAMILY 

She ran into the house and came back 
quickly with a slip of paper. “Here it 
is, and don’t lose it, will you?” 

“Nope,” said William; “and now you 
can write to me, and I can write to you.” 

“And go on having adventures. Be 
sure, William, won’t you? Maybe I’ll 
have some, too, and we can write to each 
other about them.” 

She stood at the gate and watched 
him running down the road. For a 
minute she felt as though her good times 
were running away with him. Then 
she looked at the card in her hand. 
Letters were fun; she would write to 
William to-morrow. 

But it was William who wrote first. 
Early the next week Ann received a let¬ 
ter from him. Pete, with a pleased 
grin, handed it to her when he came 


GOOD-BY, ANN 67 

from town. Ann felt very important as 
she opened it, with Mary and the other 
children standing about, waiting to hear 
her read it out. 

“Dear Ann: 

“How are you, and how are Mary and 
Florence and Jack and your pig? 

“I had a great adventure on the way 
home. The train gave a big jolt and 
scared everybody. They thought it was 
going to be a wreck but it wasn’t. It 
shook an old lady that sat in front of 
me so her glasses came off and all her 
knitting and things rolled down the car. 
I picked up her glasses and hunted up 
all her things, so she wasn’t frightened 
any more. She wanted to give me a 
peppermint candy to pay me, but I said 
I wouldn’t think of it. It was lots more 
fun than Old Lady Vegetable. I guess 
I’ll have lots of adventures now. 

“With love, 
“William (K)’’ 


68 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“ ‘Old Lady Vegetable’! What does 
he mean?” asked Mary. 

“Oh, nothing,” said Ann, smiling 
down at the big (K). When she wrote 
she would put M. W. C. after her name, 
and it would be a secret sign for all their 
letters. “It’s just a play we had. You 
and I can have one, too. Let’s make it 
up to-day.” 

“What shall we do?” said Mary, al¬ 
ways eager to follow Ann’s lead. 

“Let’s get Flo and Jack and go down 
to the hayfield and play Boy Blue. You 
can be Boy Blue, if you like.” 

Ann knew her Mother Goose by 
heart. She had read the rhymes over 
and over to little Tom and Peggy the 
winter before. Now through the sum¬ 
mer afternoons she gathered together 
aprons and sunbonnets, tin plates and 


GOOD-BY, 'ANN 69 

spoons, and all the dress-up material she 
could find, and, taking the children out 
into the sunny hayfield or the shady old 
orchard, she made them over into 
Mother Goose children, to their great 
delight and entertainment. Even Baby 



MOTHER GOOSE CHILDREN 













ANN'S FAMILY 


70 

Donald was one of the children in the 
Old Woman’s Shoe. It made it all the 
happier that the Shoe was just a big 
hollowed-out rock where he could sit 
and crow in safety. 

Often Aunt Flo, feeling her little ones 
were so safely playing, stole away for a 
much-needed nap. 

“I declare, Ann is a great help,” she 
told Uncle John one night after the tired 
quartet were all fast asleep. “Some¬ 
times I wish we could keep her all the 
time.” 

“But Margaret needs her during the 
winter,” said her husband; “and then I 
imagine Rachel counts on having her 
some of the time. I really believe she 
thinks she knows how to bring up a 
child better than the rest of us do. I’ll 
bet she keeps Ann busy. You know 


GOOD-BY, ANN 71 

how she is—never can stand a speck of 
dust anywhere.” 

“I’m afraid she’s hard on the child,” 
sighed Aunt Flo. “I believe she’d 
really be happier with us.” 

“Well, we can’t ask for that just now,” 
said Uncle John decidedly. “You 
know we all thought it would be better 
for her to go to a city school if possible. 
They are better than our district ones, 
and she’ll need all the education she can 
get, poor mite.” 

He was especially kind to Ann after 
that. 

“He’s almost like a daddy to me,” the 
little girl thought. She clung to his 
horny hand as they went the rounds 
of the barnyard at the evening 
feeding-time. 

“Tell you what,” her uncle said one 



ANN'S FAMILY 


72 

night, “I’ve got a surprise for you, Ann. 
That black-and-white pig of yours is 
turning out to be a mother pig. Maybe 
by next summer she’ll have a lot of little 
black-and-white ones for you.’’ 

“Oooh!’’ Ann jumped up and down 
in delight. “My own pig babies! Oh, 
Uncle John.’’ 

“Ever read that story, ‘Pigs is Pigs?’ ” 
laughed her uncle. “You’d better read 
it, Ann; maybe you’ll be starting a stock- 
farm some day.” 

“I believe I’d like to be a farmer,” 
cried Ann gayly. “Aunt Margaret says 
I’d better be a teacher, but I do love all 
the cunning baby things so.” 

“Learn all you can, little Ann,” said 
her uncle gently. 

“Oh, I’m going to, I’m going to learn 
to do everything, just everything. Uncle 


73 


GOOD-BY, 'ANN 

John,” said the little girl wisely, “be¬ 
cause I’ve noticed that it’s the people 
who can do everything that can do what 
they want to do.” 

Uncle John smiled his slow smile. 
“That’s why I’m a farmer, Ann,” he 
said. “Figure that out if you can.” 

The August days flew by like the 
• crows that flapped over the pasture, or 
like the clouds that changed golden sun¬ 
shine into silver showers. Almost be¬ 
fore she knew it September first had 
come, and it was time for Ann to think 
of school and her return to the city. 

Once more the old buckboard stood 
ready, this time to take our little girl 
away from the farm. Tears came to her 
eyes as Pete strapped on her trunk and 
the children gathered about her. 


74 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“Just when I’m happy I always have 
to go,” she thought. She held Baby 
Donald close in a last big hug. 

“Good-by, Precious, good-by; good- 
by everybody.” 

“Good-by, Ann—good-by.” 


VII 


AT AUNT Margaret’s 


A unt Margaret sent Un¬ 
cle Ted to meet Ann at the 
train. Ann waved gayly 
when she saw him. She liked Uncle 
Ted, and he, in turn, was fond of Ann, 
although he was usually so busy that he 
had little time to pay attention to her. 
Ann wondered why people in the city 
always seemed in more of a hurry than 
people in the country. 

“I’ll see about your trunk; hop out 
there and watch for our trolley,’’ said 
Uncle Ted briskly as he kissed her. 

“I feel like the meat in a stew when 


76 


ANN^S FAMILY 


76 

I’m here, always being stirred around 
and around,” sighed Ann as she obeyed, 
and as she waited for the trolley to ap¬ 
pear she hummed: 

“Around and around and around I ran, 

And always came back to where I began.” 

“I could almost make a Mother Goose 
myself. Maybe when I’m big I’ll make 
a whole book of verses and all the little 
children will call me Mother Ann.” 

“Good gracious, child! you almost let 
that trolley go by! I believe you’ve for¬ 
gotten what a trolley looks like—living 
in the country.” 

“I hope I haven’t forgotten what a 
schoolbook looks like,” laughed Ann as 
she settled herself in the trolley for their 
ride to the house. 



AT AUNT MARGARETS 77 

Aunt Margaret met them at the door 
and gave Ann a big hug. 

“Well, dear, it’s fine to see you again. 
Run up and wash quickly; I’ve a nice 
stew ready for luncheon.” 

“Aunt Margaret can’t help thinking 
of stew, either,” Ann smiled to herself 
as she ran upstairs. There little Tom 
and Peggy threw themselves upon her 
in delight. Ann told them the stories 
that their busy mother never had time to 
tell, and they were always glad to see her 
come back to them. 

Peggy was a dainty little thing, with 
hair like Ann’s but she had dark eyes 
like her father’s. She was six years old 
now, but sturdy, blue-eyed Tom was as 
big as she was. They went downstairs, 
each clinging to one of Ann’s hands. 

“Did you bring us anything?” asked 


78 ANN’S FAMILY 

Peggy as they sat down for luncheon. 

“Yes, sir; a box of tea-berries and 
some little boats to sail in the bath-tub. 
We sailed ours in the creek and had lots 
of fun. And I brought Aunt Margaret 
a jar of gooseberry preserves that Aunt 
Flo sent her.” 

Aunt Margaret smiled over at Ann. 
“She looks well, doesn’t she?” she said to 
Uncle Ted. 

“And you’ve got freckles,” sang out 
little Tom—“lots of them.” 

“I know I have,” laughed Ann; “I 
got them in the hayfield.” 

She began and told them about her 
happy time on the farm, about William, 
and about her own pig, until Uncle Ted 
rose to go back to his work and the chil¬ 
dren begged Ann to show them the 
boats she had brought for them. 


AT AUNT MARGARETS 79 

“Run along and unpack them,” said 
Aunt Margaret. “I’ll do the dishes to¬ 
day, and afterward I’ll come up and 
look over your clothes for school. I do 
hope you won’t need many new ones— 
money’s so scarce this fall, and coal’s so 
high.” 

“Oh, I won’t,” Ann assured her. 
“My shoes are as good as new because 
we went barefoot, you know, and my 
aprons kept my dresses splendidly!” 

She started the boats sailing gayly in 
the bath-tub for the little girl and boy. 



SAILING GAYLY IN THE BATH-TUB 


































8o ANN’S FAMILY 

and then put her own things in their old 
places. 

“We’re back again, dears,” she said to 
her father’s and mother’s pictures. 
“This is second best, isn’t it? I wish we 
didn’t have to go to Aunt Rachel’s 
later on.” Ann sighed as she thought 
of the lonely house across the city. 

“Well,” said the little girl, getting up 
and throwing out her arms, “fussing 
never helps any; that’s one thing I ought 
to make a verse about.” 

She went to the closet and took down 
her schoolbooks and pencil-box that she 
had put away months before, and on her 
pad she neatly wrote another verse. 

“Trouble’s like a cloud in the sky. 
Oftentimes it goes right by; 


AT AUNT MARGARETS 8i 


And if the mean thing rains on you, 

It sometimes leaves a lovely view.” 

“There!” said Ann. “I think, I 
really think, that’s the best one yet.” 


VIII 


A PLAIN DAY 


I T was a good thing our Ann had de¬ 
cided “not to fuss.” 

There were many troublesome 
little tasks to be performed each day in 
the Stratton household. Aunt Mar¬ 
garet kept no maid, and it fell to Ann to 
run errands, dry the dishes, and help 
with her little cousins. Each morning 
she helped Peggy dress for school, and 
every evening, while Aunt Margaret 
prepared dinner, Ann would give the 
children a light early supper and take 
them upstairs to bed. 

“There isn’t much time for play,” 

said the little girl to herself, “and I must 

82 



A PLAIN DAY 


83 

do my lessons. Fifth grade is going to 
be much harder than fourth—I can tell 
that already.” 

“Fll make an adventure out of it, 
and play that every day’s a journey to 
the king’s castle,” thought Ann one 
night as she patiently helped Tommy 
untie a knotted shoe-lace. “I guess my 
lessons will have to be the castle to¬ 
night. Hurry, Peggy, do”; she said to 
the little girl beside her. “I’ve got 
fraction examples to do to-night, and 
they do mix me up.” 

“Tell us a little story, Ann, and we’ll 
get right in bed,” wheedled Peggy; 
“honestly we will, and we won’t make a 
bit of noise!’ 

“Run quickly then and brush your 
teeth and I’ll find a short one,” sighed 
Ann. 



84 


ANN’S FAMILY 


Coming back with one of her school¬ 
books a moment later, she found the two 
children sitting in bed with shining 
faces turned to her. She bent and 
kissed them both warmly. They were 
dear little things, after all, if they were 
so much trouble. 

* 

“Well, you are good lovies,” she said, 
“and here’s a story about a little boy 
who was just going to sleep as you are.” 

“the wonderful land” 

“Once upon a time there was a little 
boy who was just going to sleep. His 
eyes were closed and his mother was 
singing beside him, when he had a 
dream. He dreamed that he lay beside 
a little brook, and that it was the brook 
and not his mother that was singing to 
him. And as he lay there listening, an 
angel came and led him across a golden 
bridge into a wonderful land. 


A PLAIN DAY 


85 



“At first it seemed like the country 
where he himself lived, but, as he walked 
with the angel and looked about, he saw 
that it was different. Everything that 
grew was larger and more beautiful. 




































86 


ANN’S FAMILY 


Happy, gay-plumaged birds flew by un¬ 
afraid. Even the sky seemed a deeper 
blue. And the little boy noticed that 
the faces of the people, as they went to 
and fro about their work, shone like the 
face of the angel beside him. 

“ ‘Why is everything so beautiful 
here?’ he asked the angel. 

“ ‘It is because there is only love here,’ 
the angel replied. ‘Once there was 
hatred mixed with the love, and there 
was war and envy and sickness and 
waste; but the people became strong, 
one by one and all together, and little by 
little they drove all these ugly, fearsome 
things out of their land until only love 
remained to bring them peace and 
beauty and God.’ 

“ ‘I see,’ said the little boy, ‘I will try 
to remember that, to tell my—’ He 
was going to say ‘to tell my mother,’ 
when he woke up and saw that his 
mother was still sitting beside his bed, 
humming softly the bedtime song. 

“The little boy never forgot what he 
had dreamed. Sometimes when he 


A PLAIN DAY 


87 

closed his eyes he could see the wonder¬ 
ful country and he could hear the an¬ 
gel’s words—‘Only love will bring 
peace and beauty and God.’ 

“All through his life he remembered, 
and because he remembered his days 
were full of gentle thoughts and kindly 
deeds. Long, loving years he lived, and 
when he died the angels, looking in his 
heart, smiled, and they took the seeds of 
that perfect thing they found there, and, 
flying over the old man’s own country, 
they scattered them far and near in the 
hearts of men. 

“And it came to pass that years after, 
as those seeds took root and flourished, 
that glad things happened in that coun¬ 
try and it became like the wonderful 
land that the little boy had seen in his 
dreams.” 

“I don’t think that’s a nice story,” 
said Peggy, as Ann laid down the book. 

“Why, 1 do—I thought it was beauti¬ 
ful,” said her cousin. 




88 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“It’s something like the ‘Tidy Angel,’ 
isn’t it?’’ 

“No, it’s like ‘Apple-seed John,’ ” de¬ 
clared Tom. 

Ann laughed. “You’re both right 
and you’re both wrong. Now shut 
your eyes tight and maybe you’ll have a 
golden dream.” 

She kissed the sleepy children again 
and went downstairs with her school¬ 
books in her arms, but Aunt Margaret 
caught sight of her in the living-room. 
“Could you lay the table for me, Ann?” 
she called. “I’m late to-night.” 

“I declare, I guess big people think 
children never get tired,” sighed poor 
Ann. 

By the time the table was laid dinner 
was ready, and it was a very drowsy little 
brown head that worked over fractions 


A PLAIN DAY 


89 

that night. It was half-past eight be¬ 
fore Ann stood before Aunt Margaret to 
say good-night. 

Her aunt kissed her gently. “You’re 
a good child, Ann,” she said. 

Ann went over and kissed Uncle Ted. 
“Good-night, little girl,” he said 
absently. 

Ann looked back at them into the 
warm lamp-lighted room. 

“I wish one of them would put their 
arms around me,” she thought as she 
stumbled up the stairs. “Oh, I do wish 
somebody would hug me tight!” 

She got ready for bed very quickly, 
but she looked long at the dear pictures 
on the bureau. “To-morrow may be an 
Adventure,” she told them, “but to-day’s 
just been a plain day.” 


IX 


AN INVITATION 


“ A NN, Ann, here’s a letter for 
/ % you!” cried little Peggy, 
^ dancing to meet Ann one 
afternoon as she came from school. 

The lovely autumn days had passed 
all too quickly. Christmas had come 
and gone, leaving January with its snow 
and cold, short days. Ann’s cheeks 
were rosy and her fingers stinging with 
cold as she threw off her tam-o’-shanter 
and gloves and took the letter from 
Peggy’s hand. 

“It’s from Mary, I guess.” 

“No, it isn’t; Mother looked at it, and 

90 


AN INVITATION 


91 

she says she doesn’t know the writing 
at all.” 

“Why, it’s grown-up writing, isn’t 
it?,” said Ann. She tore the envelope 
open and a pretty card, bordered by pic¬ 
tures, fell out: 

“William Ellery Hazard, Jr. 
is going to have a party 
Saturday afternoon, 

January sixteenth, from four until six. 
SUPPER 17 FARGO STREET.” 

“Oh! he did remember!” Ann cried 
joyfully. 

“Who is it? What did he remem¬ 
ber?” asked Peggy, but Ann was run¬ 
ning to find her aunt. 

“Aunt Margaret, Aunt Margaret, I’m 
invited to a party. It’s William, and I 
know it’s his birthday—he told me in the 
summer!” 



92 ANN’S FAMILY 

“William! Who’s William?” said 
Aunt Margaret. 

“Why, he’s that boy I told you about. 
Don’t you remember, we went to Fenly 
on the same train, and all 1” 

“Oh, yes”; Aunt Margaret remem¬ 
bered dimly something about a boy. 

She took the invitation from Ann’s 
hand and looked it over carefully, notic¬ 
ing the pretty, gilt-edged card, the deli¬ 
cate handwriting, and the uptown ad¬ 
dress printed in the corner. 

“It’s very kind of them to ask you,” 
she said practically, “but I don’t see how 
you can go.” 

Not go I Ann’s heart went down into 
her little shoes. 

“Oh, Aunt Margaret, why cant I go? 
I want to go.” 

“I suppose you do, dear,” Aunt 


AN INVITATION 


93 


Margaret spoke kindly, “but you know 
a party like this is different. You’d 
have to have a party dress and slippers 
and things, and you say it’s a birthday— 
that means a present, too, you know. 
I’d like to let you go, Ann, but I really 
can’t spare the money for things you’d 
probably not wear again this winter.’’ 

“But I’d wear anything,” the little 
girl entreated. “I could wear my tan 
challie I wear to church. It would look 
all right.” 

“Well, if it had fresh ruffles at the 
neck, I suppose it might,” Aunt Marga¬ 
ret’s voice wavered—then became res¬ 
olute again. “But here’s another thing, 
Ann, how would you get home? It 
would be too late for me to come over 
and get you; I’d have dinner and the 
children to look after. No, I think 



ANN’S FAMILY 


94 

you’d better give it up. You might give 
something up, Ann, we all do all we can 
for you.” 

The little girl crept away without an¬ 
other word. Her eyes were very bright, 
but she did not cry until she was on her 
own bed behind the shut door. 

“I hate Aunt Margaret,” she sobbed. 
“I hate her and I hate this house and 
everybody. I’ve never been to a party 
in all my life, and now she won’t let 
me go!” 

In the midst of her misery another, 
thought struck her with cruel force. 
“William will think I didn’t want to 
come. William will think I don’t like 
him any more.” 

It seemed too much to bear. Ann 
cried until her head and her throat and 
eyes seemed all dried up. 


AN INVITATION 


95 

“Oh, why can’t I have a mother who 
would make me a dress?” she kept say¬ 
ing over and over. 

Soon the gathering darkness outside 
interrupted her thoughts, and Ann sat 
up in surprise. “Why, I’ve stayed up 
here too long. Aunt Margaret won’t 
like it if I’m naughty. Maybe—maybe 
if I’m very, very good, she’ll change her 
mind.” 

She opened a bureau drawer to get a 
handkerchief. There in the corner of 
the drawer sat the little green box. In¬ 
side was William’s card that he had 
given her before he left the country, and 
inside, too—“Why, I’d forgotten all 
about that,” gasped Ann. She drew 
out of the box the dollar and a half she 
had earned picking peas. 

Ann was only a little girl. It seemed 


96 ANN’S FAMILY 

to her that a dollar and a half was a 
great deal of money—enough perhaps 
to buy all she needed for the party. 
Forgetting to wash her tear-stained face, 
she ran downstairs with the money in 
her hand. The children had had their 
supper and Uncle Ted had come home. 

“Aunt Margaret, look!” Ann held 
out the money. “It’s what Mrs. Gates 
gave me, and Uncle John wouldn’t take 

it for my pig. I 
forgot all about it. 
Couldn’t you take 
it and buy what I 
need for the party?” 

Her aunt looked 
at the money and at 
Ann’s red eyes, and 

“COULDN’T YOU kughed, but her 
TAKE IT?” heart softened. 







I 



AN INVITATION 97 

“What’s the matter?” asked Uncle 
Ted. 

Aunt Margaret explained. 

“Oh, rig her up in something and let 
her go,” said Uncle Ted good-naturedly. 
“I’ll go up and get her on my way home 
from the ofHce.” 

Ann flew to him. “Oh, Uncle Ted, 
would you? Oh, thank you. Uncle 
Ted! Aunt Margaret, now could I 
go?” 

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Mrs. 
Stratton with a sigh. “I suppose you 
can wear your best shoes instead of slip¬ 
pers, and I may be able to fix your dress 
so it will be presentable.” 

Ann could hardly eat her dinner, but 
afterward she hurried about, doing all 
she could to help. She carried out the 
dishes, scraped and wiped them. She 


ANN'S FAMILY 


98 

folded the cloth neatly and brushed up 
the crumbs. Then she began to study. 
Oh! her lessons were more troublesome! 
Somehow the geography seemed to be 
saying: “I’m going to a party. I’m 
going to see William”; but it was 
learned at last. 

“Good-night, Uncle Ted; good-night, 
Aunt Margaret,” said Ann, kissing 
them both vehemently. 

They smiled at each other across the 
lamp-lighted table as she left the room. 

And upstairs Ann was saying to her¬ 
self: “Oh, I love Aunt Margaret, I 
love Uncle Ted—I love them all!'’ 


X 


THE PARTY 


“Tr’M going to town this morning 

I while you children are at school, 
and I’ll try to get that boy a 
present,” said Aunt Margaret a week 
after the invitation had been received. 
“Do you suppose he would like a 
book?” 

Ann spoke up quickly. She had been 
thinking a great deal about what she 
would like to give William. 

“Couldn’t you get him a picture?” 
she said. 

“A picture! Why boys don’t care 
much for pictures,” said Aunt Margaret 
astonished. 



/. ) 
> ) > 


99 


100 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“William would like this one,” 
insisted Ann. “It’s in the sixth-grade 
room at school. It’s a man standing be¬ 
side a horse. I asked Miss Phillips who 
it was, and she said it was a knight and 
his name was Sir—Sir^ ” 

“Oh, Sir Galahad.” 

“Yes,” assented the little girl eagerly, 
“that’s it. Aunt Margaret—Sir Galahad. 
Could you get a little one like that? If 
you could. I’d frame it as we do at 
school, with a nice green frame, and it 
would be lovely!” 

“But why a green frame?” said Aunt 
Margaret amused. “I think a brown 
or a black one would look better.” 

“He’d like a green one, I think,” Ann 
said in a low voice. “For,” she thought, 
“the picture would be for the knight, 
and the green frame for the pasture. 





THE PARTY 


lOI 


and altogether it would remind William 
of the happy days together at Fenly.” 

“Oh, all right,” laughed Aunt Mar¬ 
garet. She had felt better about the 
party since William’s mother had called 
on the telephone to see if Ann had re¬ 
ceived her invitation and if she could 
come. William, she said, was looking 
forward to seeing Ann again, and Ann, 
herself, was looking forward to seeing 
the quiet-voiced lady who wore such 
pretty clothes. 

“They’re rich,” thought the little 
girl again, “and I’m a little poorish, but 
it never makes any difference when 
you’re friends.” 

The little maiden viewed her own 
clothes with satisfaction when the morn¬ 
ing of the party-day came. Aunt Mar¬ 
garet had bought creamy ruffles for the 


102 


ANN'S FAMILY 


simple tan dress, and stockings that 
matched. As for Ann herself, her soft 
brown hair had been brushed to a satiny 
sheen, and only the curling ends waved 
out in excitement to match her flushed 
pink cheeks. 

And beside the dress, so nicely laid 
out on the bed, was the little Sir Galahad 
picture, wrapped in tissue paper and 
tied with a pale green ribbon. 

Ann felt so gay. She flew about, 
helping Aunt Margaret, she cut out 
paper dollies and made pasteboard 
houses so that Tom and Peggy would be 
happily occupied while she was at the 
party. 

But alas! in the midst of it all Uncle 
Ted came home with a miserable head¬ 
ache and a bad sore throat. 

As Ann saw him make ready to go 


THE PARTY 


103 


right to bed a terrible thought jumped 
upon her. Aunt Margaret, hurrying 
in with a hot-water bottle, had the same 
thought: “Oh, mercy, Ann, now 
Uncle Ted can’t come for you at the 
party. Whatever shall we do?” 

“I can come home myself,” said Ann 
bravely. “Why, I’m ten years old. 
Aunt Margaret, and I can come alone 
as well as anything. I’ll be ever so 
careful.” 

“I suppose it’s the only thing we can 
do now, but do leave early, Ann, it gets 
so dark now even at five.” 

Uncle Ted was asleep, with Aunt 
Margaret sitting beside him, when Ann, 
carefully dressed for the party, tiptoed 
in to say good-by. She was so shining 
and spick-and-span that her aunt could 
not help smiling at her. 


104 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“Now you’re sure you know the 
way?” she whispered. “Take the trol¬ 
ley here at our corner and change at 
Lafayette Street. Be sure and ask for 
a transfer. Did you get car-fare?” 

Yes, Ann had car-fare. She raptur¬ 
ously kissed Peggy and Tom good-by 
and set out. This was indeed an adven¬ 
ture! Going all the way across town 
alone, and to a party. 

But adventurous as she felt, it must be 
confessed her heart beat very fast as she 
left the second trolley at Fargo Street 
and walked up to number seventeen 
alone. Number seventeen was a large 
house set back in spacious grounds, and 
it surely was the one she was seeking, 
for the lights were all on, and through 
the windows Ann could see children go¬ 
ing to and fro. 


THE PARTY 


105 

“I won’t know anybody there,” she 
thought. 

“But William will be there!” and 
bravely Ann went up the walk and lifted 
the brass knocker on the door. 

A smiling maid opened to her, and in 
a second William himself, on the watch 
for newcomers, bounded out to meet 
her. The two children stood and looked 
at each other a moment shyly but gladly, 
then William exclaimed. 


“Hello, Ann!” 

“Hello, William.” 


Ann silently ten¬ 

dered her gift and 


anxiously watched 


her friend open it. 


“Oh! it’s a pic¬ 


ture,” was all he 


“it’s a knight 


io 6 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“It’s—it’s a knight!” Ann told him. 

“Oh!’’ said William again, but he 
smiled straight at her, the old William 
that she knew. 

“Thank you very much,” he said 
politely; “come on and see all the other 
things I got.” 

Ann was never shy long with children 
her own age. Although they were all 
dressed in the fluffiest of light dresses, 
she felt no distress over her own plain 
attire, and joined gayly in all the games 
and good times, drinking in happiness 
from it all, the pretty children, the lovely 
home, and William’s sweet mother, 
gowned that afternoon in the softest of 
violet silk. 

And the supper-table! Ann thought 
she would never forget it, with its pink 
and yellow candles, its hothouse flowers, 


THE PARTY 


107 

its dainty sandwiches and beautiful 
birthday cake. The supper itself 
should be her share, she thought, and the 
favors she would take for the family at 
home. Ann looked at these with great 
satisfaction, for there was really some¬ 
thing for all. Aunt Margaret should 
have the sweet-grass basket she had 
drawn from the Jack Horner Pie, 
Peggy should have the lollipop baby, 
and Tom the pretty box of tiny candies. 
And poor sick Uncle Ted could have 
the pink rose that lay beside her plate. 

With happy hands full of her presents 
she stood among the first to say good-by 
to Mrs. Hazard. 

“I’ve had a lovely time,” she said in 
breathless tones, and the eyes she raised 
to her hostess were like blue stars. 

William’s mother bent impulsively 


io8 


ANN’S FAMILY 


and kissed her. “Good-by, dear; I’m so 
glad you could be here. Has some 
one come to take you home?” 

“I have to go alone—Uncle Ted was 
sick,” Ann explained in a low voice. 

“But it’s raining!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Hazard; “it’s simply pouring!” 

“Raining!” gasped Ann. 

What should she do! The dark was 
bad enough,—somehow that seemed 
worse because the party was over,—but 
rain and no umbrella, and all her best 
clothes! But she spoke up bravely. “I 
can run to the trolley.” 

“Mother, mother!” William came 
racing up. “It’s raining awfully hard. 
Can’t Mason take Ann home? He’s 
just come with Daddy!” 

“Yes, yes—hurry and catch him, 
William. There, that will be better. 



THE PARTY 


109 

dear. It’s too stormy for you to go 
alone; Mason will take you home in the 
car.” 

So it happened that in another mo¬ 
ment our little girl found herself in the 
soft, warm limousine, comfortably set¬ 
tled for the long drive across town. 
Ann leaned back and enjoyed it all. 
What a beautiful car, and how safely it 
carried her through the beating storm! 
Ann was glad she had confided her ad¬ 
venture to William. He had remem¬ 
bered when he saw the rain that she was 
to go home alone. He was still her 
friend I 

When the car stopped before her door 
Mason got down and helped her out. 

“Thank you,” said the little girl 
brightly; “thank you very much.” 

She stood in the sheltered doorway 


no 


ANN'S FAMILY 


and watched the lights of the car twinkle 
around the corner. She would prob¬ 
ably never see it again, but William and 
his party could never be lost—they 
would live, beloved forever, in Ann’s 
beating little heart. 


XI 


SPRINGTIME AND ANN 

S PRING came early that year. It 
came with silvering showers and 
singing birds, with the softening 
green of leaf-buds and the deepening 
blue of the skv. The crocus bulbs that 
Ann’s class had planted in October now 
dotted the school lawns with color,'— 
purple, yellow, and violet. The chil¬ 
dren’s voices were shrill with pleasure 
when they caught sight of them. In¬ 
deed, the whole world seemed bursting 
with gladness. 

Ann shouted and danced with the rest 

of the children, although springtime did 

not mean all gladness for her. It meant 

111 


112 


ANN’S FAMILY 


Aunt Rachel and house-cleaning. She 
had moved to the house on Madison 
Avenue the week before, and found 
Aunt Rachel ready with the hundred 
and one little tasks she thought every 
child should know how to do. Already 
Aunt Margaret’s cozy home, Tom and 
Peggy and their Mother Goose, William 
and his party, seemed far away. 

In the school-yard at recess the little 
girl jumped rope and played jacks and 
borrowed roller-skates with an added 
zest because she knew that, once at 
home, she would not be allowed to go 
out for afternoon play. Aunt Rachel 
did not believe in little girls “running 
the streets.” Ann’s mother had lived in 
that house when she was a little girl, and 
Uncle John and Aunt Margaret and 
Uncle Robert, too. Perhaps when they 


SPRINGTIME AND ANN 113 

were all there, boys and girls together, 
the old house had not seemed so big and 
gloomy, but now- 

“Perhaps Aunt Rachel will need a 
spool of thread or something and I can 
come out again,” thought little Ann as 
she skipped home that afternoon with 
two of her own special chums. 

How pretty her little friends looked 
in their new sweaters, Betty in her yellow 
one and Katherine in her Alice blue. 
Ann stood at the corner of the street 
where she parted from them and 
watched them. 

“I wish I had a pink one; I’d love to 
have a pink sweater. I wonder if Aunt 
Rachel would get me one.” 

She glanced down at her coat, which 
was growing shabby from the constant 


wear. 



'ANN’S FAMILY 


114 

“Why do they always buy me brown 
things?” thought Ann. “I’m so tired of 
brown—brown coat, brown hats, brown 
shoes and stockings, everything brown. 
I wish I were big and could earn a lot of 
money. I wish I had a hundred dollars I 

“O my, but wouldn’t I be glad 
If I a hundred dollars had!” 

Ann laughed at the way her thoughts 
seemed to run in jingles. “I know what 
I’d do,” she said; 

“I’d hurry down into the town 

And buy some things that were not brown.” 

“That’s another verse for my book,” 
she said. 

“O my, but wouldn’t I be glad 
If I a hundred dollars had! 


SPRINGTIME AND ANN 115 

I’d hurry down into the town 

And buy some things that were not brown.” 

“I guess instead I’d better hurry 
straight on home; Aunt Rachel always 
hates it when I’m late. She’d call my 
verse-making ‘dreaming.’ ” 

As she opened the 
door her aunt was 
coming downstairs 
with her arms full 
of newspapers and 
empty boxes. She 
did not wear her 
customary afternoon 
black silk, and at 
once Ann knew what 

“Are you house-cleaning already. 
Aunt Rachel? she asked in a surprised 
tone. “Why, it isn’t May yet.” 



HER ARMS FULL 
was going on. 






ii6 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“I know it isn’t,”—^^Aunt Rachel’s 
voice was calm, though her cheeks were 
flushed,—“but I had an unexpected 
letter this morning. I declare it quite 
upset me. It was from your Uncle 
Robert, and he’s sailing for home!” 

“Coming home! from China!” 

“It’s about time, I think,” said Aunt 
Rachel; “he’s been there five years.” 

“Oh, I wonder what he’ll be like!” 
cried Ann, quite excited by the news. 

“About what he always was, I reckon; 
we Fairlees don’t change much.” 

“But I don’t remember him at all,” ex¬ 
claimed Ann. 

“You were so little when he went away. 
Five years in that heathen country,” 
said Aunt Rachel again. “But then, 
Robert always was the odd one of our 
family. I thought I might as well plan 



SPRINGTIME AND ANN 117 

to get the house cleaned before he got 
here. Men are such a nuisance around 
when you’re house-cleaning.” 

“Will he live here?” questioned Ann. 

“Well, it’s where he’s always lived.” 

Ann stood with her books still in her 
hands, reflecting. A new uncle in the 
house might be very nice, and then 
again he might not like little girls. 
He might be queer, after having lived 
in China all that time. China was a 
strange country and- 

“You’d better get an apron and come 
and help a bit,” interrupted her aunt. 
“Tilly has to get the vegetables ready for 
dinner. I did two of the upstairs clos¬ 
ets this afternoon, and to-morrow we’ll 
get at the attic.” 

The attic! 

“Oh, Aunt Rachel, will you really? 



ii8 ANN'S FAMILY 

It’s Saturday, you know, and I can help. 
I love to go up in the attic.” 

“And you can save me a lot of steps 
if you’ve a mind to,” said Aunt Rachel; 
“going up and downstairs with this 
rheumatism in my knees is hard work.” 

Ann ran off for her apron. Gone 
were all thoughts of pink sweaters and 
brown coats. Life was too full of won¬ 
derful events—the attic was to be 
cleaned on the morrow, and there was a 
new uncle coming home from China! 



XII 


A SURPRISE 

LEANING the attic was al¬ 



ways work of joy to Ann. In 
its mysterious shadows, in its 


chests and many boxes, were sure to be 
things that she had never seen—quaint 
clothes of another generation that the 
little girl longed to carry to her room 
and dress up in, happy childish things 
that seemed strangely out of place in 
that stiff, quiet, very clean old house 
of Aunt Rachel’s. Sometimes Ann 
would find a book with her mother’s 
name written in a round, neat hand; 


“Annie Fairlee, 

Christmas, 1895,” 

119 



120 


ANN’S FAMILY 


and she would stand looking at it, won¬ 
dering what her mother had been like 
when she was a little girl. 

The day after Uncle Robert’s letter 
came, therefore, Ann climbed the attic 
steps full of anticipation. She and 
Aunt Rachel threw open the little win¬ 
dows to let in air and sun; then all 
through the morning they worked, un¬ 
covering, dusting, rearranging. 

The little girl worked industriously, 
hopping from one group of things to 
' another, running downstairs with bun¬ 
dles of discarded articles, and all the 
while asking as many questions as she 
dared. And at the top of the steps 
stood a little pile of things Aunt Rachel 
had given to her for her own,—a book, 
a large silk handkerchief, and a tiny 
patchwork quilt for her one precious 



A SURPRISE 


I2I 


doll. Ann was already feeling very 
rich when something even more won¬ 
derful happened. 

“What’s this, Aunt Rachel?” she 
asked, pulling from under a pile of 
books a large leather case she had not 
noticed before. 

Aunt Rachel dusted her spectacles to 
look. 

“It’s an old writing-desk of your 
mother’s,” she said at last. 

“A writing-desk!” exclaimed Ann. 
“That’s the funniest-looking writing- 
desk I ever saw.” But when she lifted 
the top of the case and saw the little ink¬ 
well and places for pens and letter-paper 
she understood. 

“Oh, Aunt Rachel, isn’t it cunning! 
I see, you can carry it around and write 
wherever you want to.” 


122 


'ANN’S FAMILY 


“Yes,” said her aunt. “People don’t 
use them any more. Your mother used 
to carry it around a lot, though; she was 
the letter-writer of our family. I don’t 
believe your Uncle Robert’s written 
more than ten letters in all the five years 
he’s been over there.” 

Ann had been examining the old case 
with interest and longing. 

“Mayn’t I keep it. Aunt Rachel?” 
she asked. “Look, here is some sweet 
blue letter-paper and the queerest- 
shaped envelopes, and, oh! see this cun¬ 
ning little drawer!” Ann pulled open 
a tiny drawer that nicely balanced the 
ink-well on the other side. 

“There’s something in it,” she said; 
“it’s money—an old nickel or some¬ 
thing.” She held it out for her aunt to 


see. 



A SURPRISE 


123 



“it’s a five-dollar gold-piece!” 


Aunt Rachel took it from her hand. 
“Well, of all things, it’s a five-dollar 
gold-piece! Where did you get it, 
child?” 

“A five-dollar gold-piece!” exclaimed 
the little girl. “Oh, Aunt Rachel, let 
me see it. I never saw any gold money. 
It was right here in this cute little 
drawer. Mother must have left it there 
and forgotten.” 

“Father used to give us girls a gold- 









124 


ANN’S FAMILY 


piece every Christmas. It’s likely one 
of those,” said her aunt. 

She looked down at the gold-piece in 
her hand and then over at the little girl. 
“Well, ‘finding’s keepings,’ Ann,” she 
said. “This is yours, I guess, and you 
may take the old case along, too, if you 
want it.” 

Ann sat down suddenly in a heap. 

“Mine! Do you mean it. Aunt 
Rachel? May I have it, really?” 

“Not to spend foolishly, though,” 
warned her aunt. “Keep it for some¬ 
thing you need.” 

A sudden thought came to Ann. “I 
need a sweater dreadfully,” she said. 
“All the girls have one, and my coat’s so 
heavy.” 

“Well, maybe you do.” Aunt 


A SURPRISE 


125 

Rachel adjusted her spectacles and 
went on with her work as though 
nothing had happened. 

Ann stood still. 

“Could—could I have a pink one?” 

“A pink what? A pink sweater! 
Good gracious, child, that wouldn’t be 
very sensible. A brown or a tan would 
be better.” 

Brown again! Ann clutched the 
gold-piece tightly. 

“There’s some stuff that comes that 
you can put in the water when you wash 
them and it makes them all clean and 
pink like new. I could do it myself. 
Please, Aunt Rachel, I’m so tired of 
brown!” 

“Humph!” Aunt Rachel looked at 
her sharply. “Well, when I go to town 



126 ANN’S FAMILY 

after the Turkish towels, I’ll see what I 
can do.” 

Ann clasped her hand. “If you’ll get 
a pink one,” she bargained, “you can 
have all the five dollars.” 

“Never mind now; stop thinking 
about it and get those books dusted. 
We must hurry now or we shall not get 
through before luncheon.” 

You may be sure Ann worked as she 
had never worked before. Her heart 
was beating to happy words: “Some¬ 
thing pink—and my own mother gave it 
to me!” 

A few days later, when the bundle of 
towels came from the down-town depart¬ 
ment store, a smaller bundle came with 
it. In it was a pink slip-over sweater. 


A SURPRISE 


127 

Aunt Rachel handed it to Ann with a 
fifty-cent piece. 

“There^—you can buy your stuff, 
whatever it is, with that. The sweater 
was four dollars and a half.” 

“Oh, Aunt Rachel, thank you,” Ann 
cried. “Isn’t it a beautiful one!” 

She slipped it over her head. “Does 
it look nice on me? Does it. Aunt 
Rachel?” 

“Well, yes—it does,” admitted her 
aunt. 

Ann danced around in the new 
sweater. 

“I do think you’re the best person in 
the world,” she said, stopping to give 
her aunt a shy kiss on the cheek. 

“Well, well!” Aunt Rachel rose 
hurriedly. “If you like it, see what a 



128 


ANN’S FAMILY 


good girl you can be. We’ve lots to do 
before your Uncle Robert gets home, 
and we’ll have to keep moving.” 

“Just like the tortoise that beat the 
hare,” laughed Ann, and she slipped 
away to lay the precious sweater before 
her mother’s picture on the bureau. 


XIII 


A SHIP WITH SILVER WINGS 

S Aunt Rachel said, the attic 


A 


was only a beginning. 

The old house was, as usual. 


scrubbed and cleaned with Aunt Ra¬ 
chel’s thoroughness. Ann’s feet ached 
from running up and down stairs, her 
knees and hands were red and sore from 
long afternoons with Tilly, polishing* 
the furniture and doing work that Aunt 
Rachel’s rheumatism did not permit 
her to share. Ann felt grateful for the 
rest that the hours at school gave her. 
It seemed as though the last speck of dirt 
would never be dragged to light. 


129 


130 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“It’s a very large house, isn’t it?” she 
sighed one afternoon as she helped her 
aunt measure the last pair of curtains. 

“A house is never big enough to hold 
a man,” Aunt Rachel said grimly. 
“There! they’re up, thank goodness, and 
we’re about through—Tilly’s finishing 
the bookcases. You might go out to 
the pantry, Ann, and start on that silver 
I laid out while I see how she’s getting 
along.” 

Ann rather liked to clean silver. She 
rubbed and rinsed and rubbed again in 
a very housewifely manner, laying 
the pieces side by side in a shining 
row. 

“I guess Uncle Robert will think 
everything looks fine,” she thought. “I 
wonder if he’ll bring any presents. 
Maybe he’s forgotten I’m here. Oh, I 


SHIP WITH SILVER WINGS 131 

do wonder if he’ll like little girls; I 
wonder if he’ll like me. I wish, I do 
wish, I had a family of my own; then I 
wouldn’t have to care so much whether 
he likes me or not. Mary doesn’t have 
to, or Peggy, but I have to live here with 
him.” 

A sudden tear splashed down on the 
knives and forks. Ann wiped it away 
hastily. “I’m a dreadful cry-baby,” she 
said. “I wont cry. I’ll sing! I’ll 
make up a verse and sing!” 

Perhaps it was the shining spoon in 
her hand, perhaps it was thoughts of the 
big boat that was bringing Uncle Rob¬ 
ert home, perhaps it was that sometimes 
a little girl feels lonely in a big house 
without other boys and girls,—perhaps 
they all together helped to make a verse 
for Ann to sing: 



132 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“If I were a ship with silver wings, 

I’d fill myself full of the loveliest things, 
And bring them over the wide blue seas 
To all little girls without families.” 

Ann sang it over and over. “And 
when I go upstairs I must write it 
down,” she thought quite happy again. 

The doorbell rang just then, and she 
stopped to listen. She heard Tilly go to 
the door, then her aunt’s voice in quick, 
surprised tones, then a man’s voice 
answering. 

“Can it be Uncle Robert already?” 
thought the little girl in the pantry. 
“Oh, I’m almost afraid to go in and see.” 
But she had to go, after all, for at that 
moment she heard her aunt calling her. 

Ann walked slowly into the living- 
room, to find that it was Uncle Robert. 


SHIP WITH SILVER WINGS 133 

She raised her eyes to his face and gave 
a start of surprise, for he wasn’t queer- 
looking anyhow. He was big and 
really quite young, and he was smiling 
down at her with blue eyes that were 
somehow like her own. 

“Well, well—and this is Nancy’s little 
girl!’’ he was saying. 

Ann’s heart gave a great bound. 
Every one else called her mother 
“Annie,” but here was some one who 
spoke of her in a tender voice and called 
her “Nancy.” 

“To think that that mite of a baby 
should have grown to this,” Uncle 
Robert continued. “And I suppose all 
of John’s tribe and Margaret’s have shot 
up, too.” 

Aunt Rachel began to tell him about 



ANN’S FAMILY 


134 

the rest of the family, and as Ann 
watched and listened she made up her 
mind then and there that it was going 
to be very nice indeed to have Uncle 
Robert live with Aunt Rachel. 

“Why, he’s like bringing the spring¬ 
time inside,” thought the little girl. 
“And he looks so kind. Perhaps he can 
tell stories. Oh, and maybe he’ll let me 
kiss him good-night hard.” 

In the days that followed Ann found 
that Uncle Robert would let her kiss 
him good-night hard —and that he 
seemed to like it. Every time he smiled 
at her, Ann’s loving little soul leaped to 
meet it. And the days that Uncle 
Robert spent visiting Aunt Margaret or 
Uncle John were days of longing for his 
return, for she had found also that her 



SHIP WITH SILVER WINGS 135 

newly acquired relative could tell stories 
—such wonderful ones that Ann would 
sit in quiet enchantment, forgetting her 
lessons and her little tasks. 

“You’re a pair of dreamers,’’ said 
Aunt Rachel one day as she passed 
them by. 

“Your knees wouldn’t be so stiff if 
you had a few dreams in your head, 
Rachel,’’ teased her brother. 

“Some of us have to grow up; you’re 
nothing but a child yet, for all your 
traipsing around,” retorted Aunt 
Rachel, but she laughed. 

Ann looked up in surprise. “Why, 
maybe Aunt Rachel’s soft and smiling, 
too, inside,” she thought. “Maybe she’s 
like a—like a turtle, all the hard part 
outside.” 



136 ANN’S FAMILY 

“I’ll never be so afraid of her again, 
but I guess it’s Uncle Robert, he makes 
everything seem different.” 

She drew her chair closer to him. 
“Just one more story, please,” she 
begged. 

“You tell me one,” suggested her 
uncle. 

“I haven’t any; that is, mine are all 
verses,” said Ann. 

“Verses! that sounds fine. Let’s hear 
some of them,” said Uncle Robert with 
a twinkle in his eye. 

Ann felt a little shy about showing 
her little book with all the rhymes she 
had carefully put down, but she ran and 
brought it to him. 

Uncle Robert laughed at some of 
them, but he seemed to like them. 
When she came to the one she had put 


SHIP WITH SILVER WINGS 137 

down last he looked rather thoughtful. 

“Read that one again,” he told her, 
and Ann repeated: 

“If I were a ship with silver wings, 

I’d fill myself full of the loveliest things, 
And bring them over the wide blue seas 
To all little girls without families.” 

“You haven’t much of a family, have 
you?” said Uncle Robert. 

“Not a steady family,” Ann said 
bravely. 

“Neither have I,” replied her uncle. 
“Don’t you suppose you could take me 
on for your special family?” 

“And let me be yours!” Ann spoke 
breathlessly. “Oh, Uncle Robert!” 

Uncle Robert looked still more 
thoughtful. 

“See here,” he said, “you know in the 


ANN’S FAMILY 


138 

fall I’m going to live in an apartment of 
my own, where I can have all my old 
traps about. I don’t suppose a little girl 
like you knows about keeping house for 
a bachelor like me.” 

“Oh, Uncle Robert, but I do!” Ann 
said imploringly. “Aunt Rachel’s 
taught me lots of things, and Aunt Mar¬ 
garet and all of them.” 

“I’ll wager they have,” Uncle Robert 
spoke grimly. “Well, then, puss, how 
would this do? Suppose, when I bun¬ 
dle up my things to go, I just bundle you 
up and take you along to live with me 
and help make a home.” 

“Forever and ever?” whispered Ann. 

“Forever and ever,” said Uncle Rob¬ 
ert. “And we’ll hunt up my dog, 
Terry, and take him along for family, 
too. Then if I can get my old nurse. 


SHIP WITH SILVER WINGS 139 

Janey, to come and cook for us, we’ll be 
all fixed, won’t we?” 

“But—I’m afraid you don’t under¬ 
stand, Uncle Robert,” sighed Ann. 
“Housekeeping and things cost money 
—quite a lot of money. You might not 
know that, you see!” 

“Oh, money!” Uncle Robert waved 
his hands. “I’ve got oodles and oodles 
of money!” 

Ann clasped her hands in silent bliss. 
Perhaps after all it could be true! 

“And—sometimes will you call me— 
Nancy?” she whispered. 

“If you’ll call me ‘Bob,’ ” laughed her 
uncle. “I’ve always wanted somebody 
in my family to call me ‘Bob.’ ” 

“I will, I will,” cried Ann. “I’ll do 
anything in this world you want me to 
Uncle—Bob.” 



140 ANN'S FAMILY 

Uncle Bob reached down and took 
her up on his lap. “You’re a sweet little 
thing, Nancy,” he said and held her 
close to him. 



“you’re a sweet little thing, 

nancy” 















SHIP WITH SILVER WINGS 141 

Snuggling into the curve of his big 
arms, Ann shut her eyes. Two slow 
tears trickled down in spite of her, but 
they were only tears of joy. “I guess 
it’s the very biggest adventure there is, 
having a family,” she said. 


XIV 


WHAT THEY ALL SAID 

E verybody was astonished 

when they heard of Uncle 
Robert’s plans. 

“The idea!” exclaimed Aunt Rachel. 
“What do you know about bringing up 
a child!” 

“Ann doesn’t need any bringing up— 
she’s all brought up,” said Uncle Robert 
a little grimly again. 

“You don’t know what a care and ex¬ 
pense a child is,” sighed Aunt Margaret. 

“Oh, money!” said Uncle Robert 
again. “Besides, I’ll bet you anything 
Ann saves me more than she costs me.” 


142 


WHAT THEY ALL SAID 143 

“She already 
owns a whole pig,” 
chuckled Uncle 
John. 

“Won’t Ann 
come and see us 
any more? Oh, I 
want Ann to come 
and see us,” cried 
Mary and Peggy 
and all the rest. 

“Of course I 
will,” Ann told 
them, “only now, 
“the idea!” when I go home 
from visiting, I’ll go to my own family,” 
and she smiled proudly at Uncle Robert. 

Then she sat down and wrote a long 
letter to William about it. 

“It’s something like a book,” William 

















ANN’S FAMILY 


144 

wrote back across the city, “because he 
came from China and all that. It’s a 
regular adventure, isn’t it? I guess 
you’ll be having lots of adventures 
now.” 

Ann looked up with shining eyes, 
“Why, I shouldn’t wonder but that I 
would,” she said. “Maybe—maybe I 
won’t have to stay in just three places all 
my life, now.” 

“You won’t if you live with me,” said 
her uncle. “I’ll probably pick you up 
some day and carry you back to China.” 

“Oh, oh!” cried Ann, clapping her 
hands. “Then 7 can be a ship with 
silver wings.” 

“A what?” questioned Uncle Robert. 

“You know,” Ann reminded him: 

“If I were a ship with silver wings, 

I’d fill myself full of the loveliest things. 


WHAT THEY ALL SAID . 145 

And bring them over the wide blue seas 
To all little girls without families.” 

“We will,” declared Uncle Robert. 
“Dear me, I’m so happy,” sighed 
Ann. “Are you happy. Uncle—Bob?” 
“I am, Nancy,” Uncle Bob smiled. 

“I must make a verse,” said Ann, 
snuggling close to him. 

“If I am happy and you are happy, too. 
Then all my wishes are coming true.” 


“Amen,” said Ann’s family. 



XV 


CIRCUS DAYS 

M ay came with a glad sure¬ 
ness of clear skies and blos¬ 
soming trees. In Ann’s 
heart there was a soft singing joy that 
matched the outside world. Even in 
the school-work that she already loved 
so well there was a new eagerness. 
How she worked over the bothersome 
arithmetic so that on the next report- 
card she might have an A in th'at sub¬ 
ject also to show Uncle Robert. At 
playtime and in her talk with her class¬ 
mates Ann felt that at last she was one of 
them. To be sure, she had not a father 

146 


CIRCUS DAYS 


147 

or mother to talk about, but she had 
some one now whose special child she 
was, some one to whom she could take 
the beloved pictures and who would say; 
“Yes, that’s your dad, Nancy,—he was 
a fine young chap, a manly, brave young 
chap’’; or, “That’s your mother, bless 
her, she was a sweet little thing like you, 
Nancy.” 

Aunt Rachel, too, seemed different, 
and although she indignantly whisked 
specks of tobacco from the newly- 
polished tables and expostulated contin¬ 
ually about the mud tracked in on the 
hall-rugs, she really seemed glad that 
Uncle Robert had come. She was 
pleased when he praised her good house¬ 
keeping, and had Tillie produce from 
her kitchen things to eat that Ann had 
never before seen on her table. 


ANN’S FAMILY 


148 

“A man’s eating’s half his life,” she 
said one day at the luncheon table, 
“and you never can tell what the other 
half is.” 

Uncle Robert laughed. “I never can 
tell myself these days,” he said. “I am 
having a holiday! Oh! and what do 
you think! The circus is coming to 
town! I saw the posters this morning. 
Will you go to the circus with me, 
Rachel?” 

Aunt Rachel met his mischievous 
glance imperturbably. “Circuses aren’t 
much in my line,” she said; “you seem 
to forget I’ve grown up.” 

“Dear me, dear me, that’s too bad,” 
murmured her brother. He turned to 
Ann, who was sitting with her spoon 
suspended, listening with both ears. “I 
don’t suppose you’d care to go, Ann?” 


CIRCUS DAYS 


149 

Ann let the spoon fall to the table. 
“Oh, but I would,” she cried. “I would 
so. I’ve never been to a circus in all my 
life!” 

“Well, we must remedy that,” re¬ 
sponded her uncle heartily. “I always 
go to a circus when it comes.” 

“We were going last year,” said Ann, 
quite trembling with excitement; “Un¬ 
cle Ted was going to take Tom and 
Peggy and me, but Aunt Margaret said 
it cost too much, so we just went to see 
the parade.” 

“We’d better take Tom and Peggy 
along then, hadn’t we?” suggested Un¬ 
cle Robert. “And how about John’s; 
kiddies? Wouldn’t they enjoy it? It 
comes on a Saturday, you know, so no¬ 
body would have to miss school.” 

“Mary? Oh, Mary would love the 


150 


ANN’S FAMILY 


circus! And Florence and litde Jack!” 
exclaimed Ann. 

“I’ll drop a line to John this evening,” 
said her uncle. 

“Are you starting a kindergarten?” 
asked Aunt Rachel tartly. 

“Well, a circus and children go to¬ 
gether. Besides, I didn’t bring them 
any presents when I came home. This 
will be a present from all over the world 
instead of from just China.” 

Ann sat with a beaming face. No 
more luncheon for her! “I can’t be¬ 
lieve I’m going to the circus,” she said; 
“I can’t believe it.” 

Each day that followed she looked for 
a letter to come from Fenly in answer to 
Uncle Robert’s invitation. At last on 
Friday came a note from Uncle John. 


CIRCUS DAYS 


151 

He had waited to see how the work on 
the farm was going, he said, before an¬ 
swering, and found that he himself 
could bring the children on the noon 
train. Uncle John, too, wanted to see 
the circus! 

“Good old John!” said Uncle Robert, 
and Ann hopped about with delight. 
How glad she would be to see her little 
country cousins I And Mary would be 
so funny. She would say such funny 
things and make them all laugh! 

Ann and Uncle Robert went to the 
train to meet them, Ann radiant in her 
best school-dress and her precious pink 
sweater. Her quick eye saw Uncle 
John and the children as they alighted 
from the train, and she and Mary ran 
straight into each other’s arms. They 


ANN’S FAMILY 


152 

all went to Aunt Margaret’s for soup 
and sandwiches and cocoa, and then got 
an early start! 

“Do you suppose you two men can 
manage all those children?” Aunt 
Margaret asked anxiously as she saw 
them off. “You ought to have a woman 
with you.” 

“Well, you said you didn’t care to 
come,” answered Uncle Robert. 

“No—it’s a fine chance for me to 
shop. There will be so few people in 
the stores to-day—everybody will be at 
the circus.” 

“And me, too—and me, too!” shouted 
little Tom. 

His mother kissed him good-by. 
“Look out for Tommy—he’s such an 
eel,” she said. 



CIRCUS DAYS 


153 

“I will—I will,” Ann called back as 
they all ran toward their trolley. 

Uncle Robert said afterwards it was 
as much fun to watch the children’s 
faces as it was to watch the circus itself. 
None of them had ever been to a per¬ 
formance, and, oh, how they did enjoy it 
all! They were so early at the circus- 
grounds that they went all around the 
animal-cages twice. Uncle Robert 
kept buying bags and bags of peanuts, 
but Ann, feeling that she was the mother 
of the party, declared against the lemon¬ 
ade and soft drinks that the younger 
children clamored for. 

“It has stuff in that might make you 
sick, and then your mother would never 
let you come again,” she warned them. 

“You’re an old granny, Ann,” 



154 


ANN’S FAMILY 


laughed Uncle Robert. “But come 
now, youngsters, it’s almost time for this 
show to begin. We’d better find our 
seats. Are you all here? One, two, 
three, four, five, six. Fine, come along 
now!” 

Perched on the middle benches, the 
children looked about with fresh enthu¬ 
siasm. Ann saw a number of her 
schoolmates and waved gayly to them. 

And then into the rings bounded sev¬ 
eral figures and the great show began. 
Mary said she did wish she had four 
pairs of eyes so she might miss nothing. 

“Very different from when we were 
boys, John,” said Uncle Robert—“one 
ring and a quarter’s admittance!” 
“Everything in the world going five 
times as fast nowadays, so why wouldn’t 
a circus?” answered his brother. 



CIRCUS DAYS 


155 

“I’m not going to be a policeman 
when I grow up,” little Tom whispered 
to Ann; “I’m going to be a clown.” 
Ann nodded. She herself felt a sudden 
longing to be the gay blue-tinseled fig¬ 
ure flying up at that moment from the 
second ring. 

But it was the beautiful white horse 
that pranced and danced that won 
Mary’s heart. 

“Couldn’t we, couldn’t we, buy one?” 
she implored her father. 

“Not for a hundred years or more,” 
he answered smiling. “A horse like 
that costs thousands of dollars.” 

“Well” said poor Mary, “that new 
horse of ours is real smart. Father. 
Just wait until I get home; I’m going to 
teach him tricks and tricks.” 

At last the performance was over, and 


ANN’S FAMILY 


156 

they found they could not delay long be¬ 
fore starting home. Uncle John and 
the children were due at the station for 
a six-o’clock train. 

Pressed by the hurrying crowd, little 
Peggy was frightened, but Uncle Rob¬ 
ert tossed her up to his broad shoulder 
where she soon forgot her fear. Uncle 
John held Jack and Florence firmly by 
the hand, and the others kept close be¬ 
hind. And then, all of sudden, about 
midway out, Ann missed Tom. At her 
cry the little party came to a halt. All 
looked about through the surging 
crowds for a darting little figure, but 
saw no Tom. 

“He was here just a moment ago, 
Fm sure,’’ said Ann piteously. 

“Confound that child! Why couldn’t 
he stick with the rest of us?” Uncle 


CIRCUS DAYS 


157 

John exclaimed with unusual impa¬ 
tience, but Uncle Robert looked 
worried. 

“Stand right here and wait for me,” 
he said; “there must be a place here 
somewhere where they take lost 
children.” 

He hurried away, but was brought 
back by a shout from Uncle John. Fol¬ 
lowing his pointing 
finger, they all 
looked and saw 
Tom—held high 

over the head of a 
prancing clown— 
Tom, laughing and 
shouting and all un¬ 
conscious of the 
fright he had caused 
A PRANCING CLOWN his relatives. 




ANN'S FAMILY 


158 

At their unmistakable gestures the 
clown bounded into their midst and de¬ 
livered Tommy with a profound bow. 

“Kiddie got lost so I thought I’d help 
him out a little—got a couple of my 
own,” he said laughing. 

How the uncles thanked him while 
the children gazed and gazed at him— 
a real circus clown right close to them! 

And how tightly Ann held to Tom’s 
hand all the rest of the way home. 
Aunt Margaret laughed a little and 
cried a little when she heard about it. 
“Mercy!” she said, “Think of what 
might have happened to you. Baby.” 
But to Tom it was a real adventure, and 
he never tired of telling about the time 
he made friends with a circus clown. 



XVI 


A VISIT TO JANEY 


T he next thing on my pro¬ 
gram,” said Uncle Robert 
one morning at the 
breakfast-table, “is to find dear old 
Janey.” 

“Janey!” exclaimed Aunt Rachel. 
“Why, I don’t know just where Janey is 
now. I don’t believe I’ve heard from 
her for several years.” 

“But I have,” laughed her brother. 
“I had a letter from her last Christmas 
time. I usually send her a present, a 
little money or a trinket of some kind, 
and she never fails to write and thank 


169 


i6o ANN’S FAMILY 

me. She’s living with her daughter 
Maggie, and Maggie, from all ac¬ 
counts, has a husband and some chil¬ 
dren, so they must have a houseful.” 

“You’re a curious person, Robert,” 
said Aunt Rachel. “Why should you 
remember an old servant all these 
years?” 

“She used to tell me stories,” Uncle 
Robert stirred his coffee thoughtfully. 
“We always remember the people who 
tell us stories, don’t we, Ann? And 
Janey’s were such fascinating ones— 
about the river Clyde in Scotland near 
which she lived, and about the fairies 
that lived in the heather and played 
among the bluebells in the fields.” 

“Oh! and do you remember the sto¬ 
ries?” Ann asked eagerly. 


A VISIT TO JANEY i6i 


“I’ll wager Janey does. Perhaps 
you’d like to go and see her with me this 
afternoon, Ann? Hurry home from 
school and we’ll hunt her up together.’’ 

Ann looked doubtfully at Aunt 
Rachel. 

“Would you need me for anything, 
Aunt Rachel?” she asked. “Any er¬ 
rands or anything?” 

“No, you may as well go along. I’ll 
take my rest and sew a bit on my nap¬ 
kins. I’ll be glad of a quiet house,” she 
added grimly. 

Uncle Robert laughed. “I’ll stand 
outside on my tiptoes and wait for you, 
Ann,” he chuckled as the little girl hur¬ 
ried off to school. 

She did find him waiting for her that 
afternoon, and with her hand clasped 


i 62 


'ANWS FAMILY 


in his, they sallied forth in search of the 
elderly Scotch woman who had helped 
care for Uncle Robert and Ann’s own 
mother when they were children. 

“However do you know the way?” 
asked Ann as they walked through parts 
of the town she had never before seen. 

“I know this old town from end to 
end and from top to bottom. I used to 
wander about it when I was a boy, 
dreaming dreams about the old build¬ 
ings and about the boats that came up 
the river. Perhaps that’s what started 
me off to China. Dreams are great 
things. Sometimes if you dream one 
often enough and hard enough, you find 
yourself walking right into the midst 
of it.” 

“And then it isn’t a dream any more,” 


A VISIT TO JANEY 163 

said Ann. “Just like you, Uncle Rob¬ 
ert, I used to think of somebody li kin g 
me hard, and now it’s real!” 

Her uncle smiled down at her. 
“Let’s hope dear old Janey will be real,” 
he said. “The house must be some¬ 
where about here. This is Asher Street 
—we must find number fifty-seven.” 

“Here it is,” cried Ann quickly. 
“My, what a lot of children! Do you 
suppose they’re all hers?” 

They stopped in front of a small tidy 
house in the side yard of which eight or 
nine boys and girls were playing, going 
through curious movements and contor¬ 
tions—trying. Uncle Robert said, as 
nearly as he could see, to break their 
necks. 

Ann watched them, laughing. “Why, 



’ANN'S FAMILY 


164 

I believe they’re playing circus,” she ex¬ 
claimed. “They must have been there, 
too!” 

“I hope they live to see another one,” 
laughed her relative. “I wonder if we 
have the right house.” 

“Oh! see that little girl looking out of 
the window at them,” said Ann, still 
watching the children. “I wonder if 
she’s sick.” But Uncle Robert was 
knocking at the door, and in response it 
was presently opened by a rosy-cheeked 
woman who stared at them for a mo¬ 
ment and then broke out into exclama¬ 
tions of pleasure. 

“Why, it’s Master Robert! Master 
Robert!” she cried, drawing them into 
the house. 

Master Robert kissed her soundly 
upon both cheeks. 


A VISIT TO JANEY 165 

“Bless your heart, Janey,” he said, 
“you look exactly the same! I just got 
home from heathen China and had to 
look you up. And I brought Annie’s 
little girl along with me.” 

Janey drew Ann to her, and, tilting 
up her chin, looked long into the child’s 
face. “Annie’s wee lassie! Weel— 
weel— Yes, I can see a likeness. 
She’s a bonny lass. Master Robert.” 

She beamed upon him anew, and, as 
he settled down for a talk with her, Ann 
wandered over to the window where the 
little girl was still sitting. 

“Are you sick?” Ann asked in her 
friendly way. The child pointed to her 
legs over which a blanket had been 
flung. 

“No, just lame,” she said in a shy 


voice. 


i66 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“Can’t you 
walk?” Ann que¬ 
ried again in a 
shocked voice. 

“A little about 
the house, but I 

can’t play—like 
“CAN’T YOU WALK?” » added, 

pointing to the boisterous children out¬ 
side. 

Ann smiled again at the antics of the 
crowd. “They’re playing circus, aren’t 
they?” 

“Yes,” said the little girl. “I couldn’t 
go, you see, so they come here and do 
tricks. I like to see them.” 

“What’s your name?” asked Ann. 
“Nessie.”, 

“Nessie? That’s a pretty name. I 








A VISIT TO JANEY 167 

don’t believe I ever heard that one 
before.” 

“It’s Agnes, really,” explained the 
lame child, “but Granny always calls 
me Nessie, for her sister in Scotland.” 

So the two children talked together 
until Uncle Robert rose to go. 

“I must be getting back to business 
soon,” he said. “I’ve had my holiday 
and am getting restless. I’m at the old 
house now, Janey, but if I find a little 
shack of my own, could you leave here 
and come and keep house for me? 

“Ann’s coming to keep me from be¬ 
coming too much of a bachelor, and we 
want you for a third.” 

His old nurse’s face brightened. 
“Aye, that I could. Master Robert, and 
thank ye for it. I’ve been doing days’ 


i68 


ANN’S FAMILY 


work lately, and it’s no the work for me. 
But I feel I have to be earning my bit. 
Puir Maggie has the bairns and there’s 
little Nessie. We’re all a-saving for the 
doctor and her brace, but the dollars are 
slow a-coming, canny though we be.” 

“What’s the matter with her?” asked 
Uncle Robert, looking kindly over at 
the little figure by the window. 

“She was hurt a bit back,” said Janey, 
stroking Ann’s curly head, “and the 
bone dinna set right. The doctors say 
now that only guid treatment and a 
strong brace will right it, puir lassie.” 

“Will it—will it cost a great deal?” 
Ann questioned softly. 

“A deal to puir folk, but we’ve near 
a half of it saved a’ready, and if her old 
granny can earn a bit now and then, 
she’ll look after her bairn.” 



A VISIT TO JANEY 169 

“You’ll earn a bit if you feed me,” 
laughed Uncle Robert. “I haven’t for¬ 
gotten the gruel you used to make.” 

“Ye always were a hearty laddie,” an¬ 
swered his nurse, her rosy face crink¬ 
ling into smiles. “Let me know when 
ye want me. Master Robert, and I’ll be 
aready.” 

As they left the house Ann waved 
good-by to little Nessie. Her tender 
heart was full of pity for the little girl 
who was tied for months to come to a 
chair or a brace. 

She told Aunt Rachel all about her 
that evening. 

“I wish I had a lot of money. I’d 
give it to Nessie for her brace,” she said. 

“Money doesn’t grow on trees—we 
all find that out,” responded Aunt 
Rachel. 


170 


ANN’S FAMILY 


“I could offer what she needs to 
Janey,” Uncle Robert said thoughtfully, 
“but I don’t imagine they’d take it. 
Janey’s as proud as can be, you know— 
always was.” 

Ann did not say any more. “They 
don’t understand,” she said to herself. 
“They’ve never been a little girl who 
couldn’t run around.” 

She lay awake for a long time that 
night, thinking of the little lame girl. 

“I believe if I had the money I could 
make them take it for Nessie,” she 
thought; “but I haven’t any money—I 
haven’t anything, anything at all!” 

Then like a flash came a thought. 
“Why, yes, I have—I’ve got my pig!” 
Ann almost laughed aloud in the dark¬ 
ness at the surprise and delight of it. 

“Uncle John often sells his pigs to 


A VISIT TO JANET 171 

\ 

other farmers, especially nice big 
mother-pigs that may have a lot of little 
pigs for the farmer. I’ll write to Uncle 
John and explain it all, and ask him to 
sell the pig for me and send me the 
money. Then Nessie can start right 
away getting well.” 

Very timidly the next morning Ann 
unfolded her plan to Uncle Robert. 
He looked at her for a long time. 
“Blessed child that you are,” he said. 
“If we explained to Janey that it was 
your plan for Nessie, I shouldn’t won¬ 
der but that she’d take the money—at 
least until they can pay it back. But do 
you really want to sell your pig, 
Nancy?” 

“Well—” Ann said slowly—“I love 
that pig. I do love that pig. I never 
had anything of my own before, but I’ve 



172 


ANN’S FAMILY 


got you now, Uncle Bob, and you’re 
worth a hundred pigs I” 

“I’ll try to be,’’ Uncle Robert spoke 
soberly but his eyes twinkled. “Go 
ahead, Nancy, then, and I’ll back you.’’ 

Ann sat down that very night and 
wrote to Uncle John. 

“I don’t want to start a farm right 
away, anyhow,” she told him after she 
had written the story of Nessie and her 
need. “And if it isn’t too much trouble. 
Uncle John, could you sell my pig to 
some nice kind farmer and send me the 
money?” 

She felt very happy when she had 
given Uncle Robert the letter to take out 
with him and mail, but by and by a feel¬ 
ing that she had lost something very 
dear come over her—her pig was no 
longer her pig! 



,A VISIT TO JANET 173 

She finished her lessons and then 
slowly took down the rhyme-book which 
had lain so long now upon the shelf. 
She would write a last verse-to the black- 
and-white pig: 

“Darling pig, I’ll miss you so, 

It grieves me sore to let you go. 

It’s for a little child, you know. 

To straighten her leg and make it grow.” 

There were real tears in little Ann’s 
eyes as she laid the old book away that 
night. But a week or so later there 
came a letter from Uncle John, and in¬ 
side was a check for thirty dollars. 
Thirty dollars! Ann jumped for joy; it 
would be enough to pay for Nessie’s 
brace! 

To Ann’s great surprise, Aunt Ra¬ 
chel offered to take the money to 


174 


ANN’S FAMILY 


Nessie. “As long as you’ve gone to all 
this trouble the child may as well have 
the benefit of it, and I’ll see that she gets 
it,” said Aunt Rachel with her head 
up. “If there’s anybody can make 
Janey stand around, I can.” 

She came back without the money 
and with a softened expression on her 
face. “She’s a nice little thing, that 
child, and I guess they’re worthy. I 
hope they are for your sake, Ann. 
Your money’s gone—are you sorry?” 

“No,” said Ann slowly. “I will shut 
my eyes and see Nessie running around 
all right, and I’ll be glad, glad, glad!” 


XVII 


HOUSE-HUNTING 


“ jA re you really in earnest 
/ % about this apartment idea?” 

^ Aunt Rachel asked her 
brother some days later. “There’s no 
sense in it, you know—this is your house 
as well as mine, and there’s no reason 
why you shouldn’t stay in it.” 

“You’re a dear, Rachel,” said Uncle 
Robert, putting his hand affectionately 
over hers, “but I think I’ll hunt up a lit¬ 
tle place of my own. I must be getting 
back to work soon, and when I’m en¬ 
grossed in business my irregular hours 
and masculine habits would annoy you 

175 



176 ANN’S FAMILY 

terribly. I shall be as cozy as can be 
with Janey and Ann to take care of me.” 

“Oh, Ann!” Aunt Rachel shrugged 
her shoulders hopelessly. “Are you 
still determined to take that child along, 
Robert?” 

“Yes, sir!” her brother said emphatic¬ 
ally. “I have an idea nobody knows 
how to bring up a child like an old 
bachelor, and also that nobody can keep 
a man from being too much of an old 
bachelor like a growing child. Of 
course, you and Margaret will have to 
help me out about her clothes, and I’ll 
probably have to send her to John every 
summer a bit to get fresh-aired, but I’ll 
take a long turn at her.” 

“Well, then,” said his practical sister, 
“my advice to you, if you are bent on an 
apartment, is to look up one now. 


HOUSE-HUNTING 


177 

Most leases are signed in May, and you 
can get a better apartment at a lower 
price than if you waited until autumn.” 

“I believe you’re right,” agreed Un¬ 
cle Robert. “You’re a love, Rachel, if 
you are my sister. Could you—would 
you—come along and help me pick one 
out?” 

“Take Margaret instead,” said Aunt 
Rachel. “She knows more about prices 
and modern plumbing than I do. I’ve 
lived here all my life, and don’t know 
much about these new places. If 
you could go on a Saturday afternoon, 
when Ted is home to look after the chil¬ 
dren, Margaret could get away.” 

“I’ll stop around there this evening 
and ask her,” said her brother heartily. 
“And Margaret will probably know the 
best real-estate man to approach, too.” 




ANN’S FAMILY 


178 

He found Aunt Margaret very glad to 
help him. House-hunting and shop¬ 
ping were two things she knew how to 
do well, so, accordingly, the following 
Saturday afternoon she and Uncle Rob¬ 
ert and Ann set out in the car the real- 
estate agent had brought to take them 
their rounds. 

Ann, sitting very still in her corner, 
glowed with pleasure. How kind they 
had been to take her along! And to 
think they were going to hunt for the 
little home she and Uncle Robert were 
to share together! How good she 
would be! how she would try to help 
Janey and do everything she could for 
Uncle Bob! 

All the time that Aunt Margaret was 
examining bathrooms and kitchenettes 
Ann was seeing a big chair in front of 


HOUSE-HUNTING 179 

the now empty fireplace where she and 
Uncle Bob would sit to tell stories, or— 
she was dreaming of a little dinner-table 
where she and Uncle Bob sat telling 
each other of the day just ending. 

“How do you like them, Ann?” Un¬ 
cle Robert pinched her cheek and woke 
her from her day-dreams. 

“Oh, they’re lovely,” declared Ann, 
but Aunt Margaret shook her head. 

“They’re very disappointing, I think, 
for the prices they ask. Let’s look at 
this one last place on the list, and then 
we’ll have to go home and think them 
over.” 

They drove down into the older part 
of the town, where, however, a perfectly 
modern apartment house had been 
reared, five stories high, among the old- 
fashioned houses left standing. It was 



i8o 


ANN’S FAMILY 


a beautiful, splendidly equipped build¬ 
ing with an unusual little English gar¬ 
den trailing behind it along the side 
street. About the garden was a neat 
brick wall that gave it a happy air of 

seclusion. 

0 

“Ha! this is something like,” ex¬ 
claimed Uncle Robert as they alighted. 
“I like the looks of this place, don’t you, 
Margaret?” 

“It looks very expensive,” murmured 
his sister smiling. 

The only apartment in the house for 
rent was indeed expensive, and it was 
unfurnished. “And,” added Uncle 
Robert, “plenty of rooms, but all of them 
pretty small for a fellow of my size.” 

He looked a bit discouraged and Ann 
slipped her hand sympathetically into 
his. “Well, we don’t have to decide 


HOUSE-HUNTING i8i 

anything to-day,” said Aunt Margaret, 
woman-fashion. “Suppose we go home 
now and try again sometime.” 

As they walked toward the car Ann 
tarried a moment to peep over the wall 
of the garden at the blossoming shrubs. 

“Oh! what a cunning little house,” 
she cried suddenly. 



“oh, what a cunning little house!” 


At her exclamation the others stopped 
and came back to her. 

In the corner of the garden stood a 
small low brick house, quaint and se- 




ANN’S FAMILY 


182 

eluded, and, to all appearances, closed 
for the summer. 

“The janitor’s house?” asked Aunt 
Margaret doubtfully. 

“Oh, no, indeed!” replied the agent 
smiling. “That was built by the man 
who owns this apartment house. He 
meant to live there himself, but his wife 
preferred one of the apartments. He 
sold it later to a lady who is travelling 
abroad now for a couple of years.” 

“I don’t suppose that’s for rent, is it?” 
asked Uncle Robert. “By Jove, that 
just appeals to me!” 

“Yes it is for rent for the time Miss 
Starr is away. But I thought you 
wanted an apartment. You said-” 

“We thought we did, too,” broke in 
Uncle Robert, “but they seem to be such 
pigeon-holes I’m not sure what I want.” 



HOUSE-HUNTING 183 

“Oh!” cried Ann. “Couldn’t we just 
go inside? it’s such a cunning house!” 

“Wait a moment,” said the young 
agent, looking at her suddenly. He 
consulted his notebook. “My orders 
say, ‘For rent to the right party—refer¬ 
ence required—no children.’ ” 

“Oh!” All the grown-up people 
looked at once at Ann. The little girl 
felt a big lump come into her throat. 
Here was a darling house, and one that 
Uncle Robert wanted, and he couldn’t 
have it if she came to live with him. 

“Just one little girl?” she faltered 
pleadingly. “No —just me!” 

“No children,” the agent repeated 
friendly but firmly. 

Ann swallowed hard. “You can 
have it. Uncle Bob,” she said bravely, 
“I don’t mind. I can live around like 


ANN’S FAMILY 


184 

I always have.” But Uncle Bob 
squeezed her hand. “Oh, it wouldn’t 
be any fun without you, Nancy,” he 
said. “Likely we wouldn’t like it in¬ 
side anyhow—or perhaps the price 
wouldn’t suit me. But,” he said to the 
real-estate man, “now that we’re right 
here, couldn’t we go through the place?” 

Seeing their interest, the agent led 
them along the little pathway and un¬ 
locked the door of the house. As he 
raised the shades inside the sunshine 
flooded a living-room that was delight¬ 
ful to look at. It was in tones of mel¬ 
lowest yellow and softest old gold, that, 
with the gleaming brass candlesticks 
and andirons, threw into relief the lovelv 
old mahogany furniture and its blue and 
rose velours. 



I 


HOUSE-HUNTING 185 

“What a charming room!” Aunt 
Margaret exclaimed involuntarily. 

“A wonder—comfortable but beauti¬ 
ful,” echoed her brother. 

The upstairs rooms were likewise too 
attractive for hopeless house-hunters to 
view. A man’s guest room of ample 
dimensions and fine plain furnishings! 
A smaller guest-room, evidently for a 
girl, its creamy simplicity adorned with 
flowery cretonnes. 

Ann stood and gazed admiringly at 
this little room. She thought she had 
never seen anything quite so sweet. 

Meanwhile her uncle and aunt went 
on to what was evidently the owner’s 
bedroom, quaint and cool in blues and 
silver. “And real rosewood furniture,” 
said Aunt Margaret feelingly. “She 



ANN’S FAMILY 


186 

must be a very wealthy woman, Robert, 
and one of exceptional good taste.” 

“Did you say she was an old maid?” 
Uncle Robert smilingly asked the agent, 
noting the gay orange cushion flung 
across the chaste blueness of the day-bed. 

“Never saw her myself,” replied the 
young fellow, “but it’s a wonderful little 
home she has here.” 

“It just suits me,” groaned Uncle 
Robert, “and you say the price is no 
more than the furnished apartments 
we’ve looked at? I wonder if there 
would be any use in my writing to the 
lady herself. Perhaps if she knew what 
a mouse Ann was, and what a fine house¬ 
keeper she is, she’d relent.” 

“Oh, do. Uncle Bob, oh, please do!” 
begged Ann to whom the whole house 
was like a fairy habitation. 


HOUSE-HUNTING 187 

“It wouldn’t do any harm, sir,” said 
the agent. “I’ll get the address for you 
at the office on our way back.” 

“miss MARY STARR, 

C/O DUTTON & PINCKNEY, 

NEW YORK city” 

read Uncle Robert from the slip the 
agent handed to him. “Mary Starr! 
That’s a nice name. Well, Miss Mary 
Starr, I shall write to you this very night, 
for I certainly do like your house.” 

“You will likely never hear from her,” 
discouraged Aunt Rachel when she 
heard about it. “She probably doesn’t 
care whether she rents the house or 
not.” And indeed for a long time it 
seemed as though Aunt Rachel were 
right, but at last one day there came a 
letter with a foreign postmark. 


i88 


ANN’S FAMILY 


Miss Starr, it said, had received 
Mr. Fairlee’s letter. She would be 
happy to overlook the presence of Mr. 
Fairlee’s young niece, provided she 
were, as he declared, not the usual care¬ 
less modern child. She was writing by 
the same mail to her lawyers, who would 
look up Mr. Fairlee’s references. If 
they proved satisfactory, as she was sure 
they would, her lawyers would notify 
the real-estate firm and authorize them 
to lease her property to Mr. Fairlee for 
two years at the stated rent. 

Ann, breathless until the last word 
was read, gave a long sigh of relief and 
gladness. Later, when she really met 
the lady of the fairy house, she tried to 
tell her how she had felt when they re¬ 
ceived that letter. But that is a part of 
another story. This story of Ann is 


HOUSE-HUNTING 189 

nearly ended. In another month’s time, 
after an interesting but a shorter than 
usual visit to the farm, our little Ann 
was settled with Uncle Bob and Janey in 
the new home, and here we shall leave 
her to succeeding years of new ad¬ 
ventures and new happiness. 


THE END 






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